Dragonball Infinity
by Alastair
Summary: A different take on the Android and Cell Sagas. Gokuu is a girl? No Trunks? So what about Gokuu's medicine? WOMB
1. Out of my Depth

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter One: _Out of my Depth_

--

Gokuu landed gingerly, wincing when even the bottoms of her feet felt sore from her battle. Her friends jumped from out their hiding places, or landed themselves from their watching positions in the air. Her friends and one angry looking Prince, but she smiled at them all, "Heh, now that Freeza's finally done with ..." her smile became more tired looking, "it's nice to see all of you again."

Yamucha laughed, and patted her back, causing her to grimace in pain, "We've really missed you, Gokuu."

"Did you really have to be gone for two years?" Tenshinhan asked.

"Got any souvenirs?" Kuririn butted in.

"Got any last words?" Gokuu jerked to attention when Vegeta advanced toward her. The ex-desert bandit jumped back away from him as he stopped to stand directly in front of her, glowering at her form.

"... !" She smiled, her tired form feeling lighter at the thought of a good spar with him, "Hey! I didn't think that you'd stick around on Earth! Why are you still here?"

His lips curled up into a sneer, "I only 'stuck around' so I could finally crush you, Kakarotto."

Only smiling wider, she laughed, "What? Are you a Super Saiyajin now?"

She watched his left eyebrow twitch in that familiar way, and suddenly his energy erupted around him before he leapt into the air, blasting away to the horizon. Blinking in confusion, her smile died a bit when she realized that Vegeta obviously had not succeeded in achieving his goal of becoming a Super Saiyajin.

After informing her friends of her travels and showing off her new nifty trick, Gokuu flew with Bulma in her plane, the both of them planning on picking up Chichi, and going shopping with her.

"Gokuu-chan, it's been way too long," Bulma said for what must've been the third time that day, staring off into the sky that she flew in. "This is great. You killed the badguys again, and now we can just have fun like we used to."

_... Wow, she's right. It really has been a very, very long time._ "Bulma?"

"Yeah?" She asked, still looking ahead through the window.

Gokuu considered the friend that had been with her for the longest time. They had - so far - gone through most of their adventures together, and yet, here Bulma was. They were so extremely different from one another that it almost wasn't funny. Just how did people like them stick together so well? "Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

The ship seemed to slow slightly as Bulma finally looked at her, her mouth gaping open, "Wha-? What do you mean, Gokuu-chan?

She lowered her head, her mind attempting to formulate words and sentence structures to convey the strange sense of sudden isolation that she had, "I ..." With the thought of forming words, she went over what she had said already. Was that really the way she should have worded that? Yet, again there was Bulma. Happy, and she had a nice home where she lived with Yamucha, Puar, Mr. Briefs, and Mrs. Briefs. Bulma had everything that she had ever really wanted in the world. She was just as brave as Gokuu herself, if not braver for she was so very weak, but Gokuu had only her little home on the mountain, all by herself.

It was her nice quaint humble abode, and it really was all hers, but then shouldn't she have gotten so much more for all she had done? Nothing material because she was truly happy living there peacefully, however she was doing it all alone. _I need a link too ... something that I can really belong to. Is that what the Yardratjin were trying to make me understand? Why did it take me this long to realize it?_

Unable to word this sudden ache, Gokuu lifted her hand, and revealed four fingers, making Bulma ask, "Huh? Four? Four what?"

Licking her drying lips, Gokuu whispered, half to the floor and half to Bulma's knees, "It's been almost four years ... One year spent killing my niisan, Radittsu, training with King Kai, and fighting Nappa and Vegeta. Then, the next year all I did was heal, and train to fight on Namek. So now, this past year or so, I was training on Yardrat, and when I got back ... Freeza was waiting for me. I love fighting, Bulma, I really do, but even doing all of that, and getting so much stronger than I've ever imagined ..." She cocked her head to the side, trying to think around what she wanted to say next because it just wasn't so true. Gokuu wasn't alone for she had all of her friends.

"And no one could deserve a break more than you, Gokuu-chan."

Her eyes lighted up slightly, and she raised her head as she straightened. Did Bulma understand her? "Really, Bulma?"

"Really," Bulma's right eye twitched, and then she reached over to pinch her cheek, "Ze gods, you're just so cute, Gokuu-chan." She turned back to her sky, and sped up, "We need to hurry up, and pick up Chichi so that we can get you out of that fashion disaster."

--

"Hey!" Vegeta sneered at the female Saiyajin, watching her snap out of whatever trance that she had been in, and she looked up at him when before her head and eyes had been lowered to the floor while she walked in between the Amazon and the screaming siren. A few other people on the busy street stopped to stare at them, but Vegeta didn't give them much thought before he pointed at her, "Kakarotto! You better not forget that I'm going to defeat you!"

"Should've known ..." behind him, the scarred Chikyuujin muttered. He and the bald one had both followed him once they realized he was heading for Kakarotto's energy signature.

"I told you, Yamucha - he's got a one-track mind!"

This didn't register inside of Vegeta's brain though because all Kakarotto seemed to be doing was stare at him.

"Bug off!" The two Chikyuujin females snapped at him, baring their non-existing fangs, and jumping in front of Kakarotto as if they could protect her from him.

He began to see red. _She thinks she can just hide behind these bags of poor flesh?_ How dare they get in the way of he and Kakarotto! "And you banshees think that you can make me?"

"What?" The black-haired cretin took a threatening step forward.

He wasn't quite clear on how long they bickered or how cue-ball and scar-face were dragged into the foray, but quite abruptly Vegeta noticed the absence of someone, "Where's Kakarotto?"

Instantly, he checked for her energy signal, seeing her walking down the sidewalk, and holding the hand of a little girl who was sniffling tears. Barely the next moment after gaining the others' attention and seeing Kakarotto, he pointed in the opposite direction that she was heading, "She's over there!"

As one the four Chikyuujin called out her name, heading down where Vegeta had directed them. None of the warriors even thinking about sensing her out. Vegeta counted himself a genius for thinking so quickly.

_... What a bunch of morons. That was too easy._ And so he followed Kakarotto, just behind her enough not to alert her to his presence, but it was just close enough to hear her conversing with the little girl with black hair.

"So you said you saw your mommy around here last?"

"Uh huh, she was shopping for-" she whispered something, but Vegeta didn't catch it.

The female Saiyajin laughed lightly, "Well then, I know where a few places like that is around here. So do you have any favorite TV shows?"

"Yeah! My favorite Sailor is Usagi!" She bounced, excited at the concept of talking about something she enjoyed.

"Yeah?" Kakarotto smiled down at her, "I like Kino Makoto." Vegeta was almost grateful when she changed the subject. "Your shirt's so cute." Almost.

"Thanks! Mommy got it for me on my birthday."

"Oh, yeah? How old are you?"

Vegeta gritted his fangs, hearing them grind within his mouth, _Super Saiyajin? This pathetic example of my race? She should have died on Namek!_ His eyes watched a rock pebble that he idly crushed as he walked, _Oh, what a proud prince I am now. Outdone by this third-class pauper! Well, not anymore!_

They turned just then, walking into a store, and Vegeta moved to follow them inside, waiting a moment for others to walk in before he did so. He didn't think to check what type of store it was before he entered.

As his mind began to fizzle, a stores person - a young woman - walked up to him, asking pleasantly, "Welcome to Victoria's Secret, I'm Tetsuko-"

"It should have stayed a secret," he said faintly, and turned right around to exit.

--

_Stupid Kakarotto._

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

_Stupid kid! ... Why are you stopping in every single lingerie shop that you see?_ His mind numbed with the sudden thought of a previous lingerie store that wouldn't allow the child to enter. _And with good reason too! That blue-haired woman would have fainted too, and that's an understatement what with how many times she parades around in her underwear! ..._ He paled slightly, _At least, I hope she'd have enough sense to faint from all of those ..._

"Huh? A boyfriend?"

Shutting his eyes momentarily, he thought, _Why am I bothering with following her?_

"Yeah. A guy you kiss, and hug, and hold hands with, and eat ice cream with, and ..." For some reason the girl giggled, and squealed, "Or are you married already?"

"Uh ... What?"

She tilted her head to the side, "What's wrong? You do have a boyfriend, right?"

--

Gokuu tried to make sense of all the new information that had been thrown her way. Something about hands and ... ice cream? _Well, I like ice cream ... and I could really pack a lot of it down too!_ She smiled briefly to herself before she blinked from a sudden thought, _I wonder why no one else eats like me. Is it because I'm a Saiyajin ...? Does Vegeta eat like me?_

The thought of him abruptly brought awareness of him to her as well, and she looked over her shoulder at the glowering Saiyajin Prince walking only a few meters behind them.

--

"No, I have a stalker."

_What the-?_ His head jerked up to see Kakarotto glance back at him, and grin.

She looked back down at the little girl, "If he's not a boyfriend, then he must be my stalker."

_What the hell is Kakarotto getting off on? Ruining a perfectly good meal by making me want to hurl ..._ Idly, he looked her up and down, raising a thick eyebrow when he thought that he saw her pant leg move oddly, and then shook it off. _Where's she getting such stupid, insane ..._ - her eyes looked back to meet with his, and he felt his face heat up slowly, even when her eyes were gone - _wild ... thoughts ...?_ Eyes went back down to where he thought that he had seen a queer movement, but they trailed up her smoothly muscled legs to a sweet, full ... _No! Bad!_

Seeing the other Saiyajin stop and hand over the little girl to another older woman, Vegeta leaned back against a wall, _Damned Kakarotto is only teasing me anyway. I shouldn't think too hard on it._ He felt her energy signal start toward him. _But ... why was she smiling when she saw me earlier? Was she glad to see me?_ "What the hell do you want, Kakarotto?"

"Oh!" She jumped when Vegeta glared at her, "I ..." The words failed, but then she tried again, "I ... was ..."

"What the fuck is your problem already?" Grabbing her shoulder, in one swift motion, he slammed her up against the wall of the building, "Spill!"

_This foolish, stupid girl. How can she get on my nerves like this? So she's a Super Saiyajin now. Who cares? I could do that! The dumb bitch won't know what hit her once I ... once I ..._ His chest heaved from the effects of his distraught mind, and his gut twanged, catching the scent of something primal. He squeezed her shoulder harder, watching her gaze up at him unflinchingly, _Why are you so otherworldly, Kakarotto? Why ... ?_

She turned her face away from his, and Vegeta shook out of the lust-induced frame of mind, taking a step back from her, _Where the hell did that come from?_

"Gokuu-chan! Vegeta!" All of a sudden, he was thankful for scar-face's existence, and then grimaced at him and baldy. "Uh ..." he laughed, "do I even want to know?"

The short Chikyuujin frowned softly, and stepped up, "I do! What were you two doing?"

"Sorry," at last she spoke. "I got to go now."

"What?" With a strange blur, she disappeared. "Wait!"

_... Shit,_ he recalled that strange movement from beneath her pants. When she had flown away, a wave of her scent had hit him straight in the face once more - only this time, he had the sense and frame of mind to be able to determine the stench. Kakarotto had her tail back.


	2. Get it Faster

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Two: Get it Faster

--

How could she have let Vegeta get so close to her? She had had her eyes on him the whole time. She couldn't understand just what had happened to her in that moment to make her freeze up in that instance of his close proximity. All she could remember was the heaviness of his hand, and looking up to see him _right there_, and closer than he had ever gotten – even during their battle he had not moved in like that. Gokuu wondered if it was something she should forget instead of keeping the memory in the back of her mind.

Besides, she had been putting her task off for long enough, and it was a perfect excuse to escape that odd moment with Vegeta. Gokuu hadn't been inside of her house in over four years, after all, and just _thinking_ about how much dust had collected made her Saiyajin nose itch in irritation.

Gokuu opened the door, holding her breath, and glad for it when dust stirred up from the floor.

Tears rose to her eyes.

However it was not from the dust - though it helped. Directly in the middle of her living room wall across from herself was a large crack from what must have been a large earthquake. Most of the furniture seemed to have toppled over because of it, and a picture on her wall was slanted and barely holding onto the nail that held it aloft – the lone frame that had survived the earthquake for the rest were in little heaps of broken glass in various parts of the room. This picture was of her in her younger years with Kame Sen'nin, Kuririn, Bulma, Yamucha, Oolong, and Puar - all smiling at the camera.

She took the image, and clutched it tightly as her hands began to shake.

--

Vegeta cocked his head to the side, grunted, and then nudged at her, "Wake up, Kakarotto."

He had found her there - curled up on the thick branch of a tree, wearing what seemed like _only_ a large blue T-shirt. Wrapped about one of her thighs was the tail that he had suspected her of accumulating somehow in her travels.

Finding his hand straining for her tail, he retracted it back to his side with snap, snorting in annoyance.

"Wake up, damn it! ... Kakarotto ..." he was currently floating beside her on her high branch, "Kakarotto ...!" And he was quickly losing his patience.

"Huh?" Suddenly her shoulders twitched, and her eyes clenched tighter closed before they opened up, "... Ve ..."

"Find her yet?" Vegeta heard the bald one call out from further in the forest, startling him.

He and Vegeta had both gone to Kakarotto's home at the same time to go looking for her, and upon not finding her, they had split up in the forest around her house to search for her.

"No!" He shouted back to him after checking whether the bald man was anywhere nearby, and if he would be able to see the two of them together. He then redirected his gaze toward Kakarotto's face, "Why the hell are you sleeping in a tree?"

Her eyes lowered from his eyes to his chest, and one corner of her lips quirked up, "... I like your shirt."

Quickly he glanced down at his own white shirt which stated 'SPORK' proudly, and covered his eyes, holding back his disgruntlement, "Forget the shirt. Just answer me."

"Um ..." she wrapped her arms around her knees, and unable to help himself, his eyes darted to her upper thighs where he saw that she was wearing green panties underneath, "My house is too dusty to sleep in. I found some 'jamas and then came out here."

"Out in the cold with no blankets?" He went to stand on the branch, still looking down at her.

"The moth-eaten blankets, you mean?" His eyebrow twitched from the odd finality in Kakarotto's tone, and then she stood up, shuffling her bare feet a bit, "In fact ... this is the only thing I found that _wasn't_ ruined ..."

"I see ... come on then," Vegeta turned around.

"Why?"

"I'm sure that Bulma wants you to be safe and sound at her abode," he snorted. Personally, he would have loved to just leave her lying around in her skivvies; however he did not desire to do battle with an ill Saiyajin. He needed to get around to achieving Super Saiyajin after all, and defeat the girl.

"There's no reason for her to be ..." there had been no confidence in her voice, or even grit. It was like they had both suddenly died within her.

After a moment, Vegeta looked back at her, something feeling out of place, "What?"

She started, "It's nothing."

His hand shot out of its own accord, grabbing and clenching her small neck, "Who the hell are you?" When she tried to pull away, his hand went with her, following her body only to slam her back against the trunk of the tree, his thumb pressing tautly to her jugular, "You haven't been acting like yourself, Kakarotto. Tell me what's going on with you." Her eyes began to dart around, trying to look anywhere but at his face as he leaned in closer, "Look at _me_, Kakarotto. You can't find your answers in this damned forsaken forest."

Uncertainty crept into her eyes which turned back to him gradually, "I-"

He heard more than felt his jaw snap out of place briefly when a fist connected to it. Without missing a beat, he turned on his attacker, and smashed his own fist into his assailant's face, smirking in satisfaction as he noticed it was cue-ball.

As the stupid man soared back from the force of his blow, crashing through several trees before landing, Vegeta started to go after him, but a small hand grasped his calf, "Stop it! You were fighting _me_!"

"No," - he turned about in her grasp - "I wasn't!" Sitting up in the air, he took hold of the arm of the hand holding him steady, "It was more like playing with a doll than fighting a warrior. Worse than that ... you were a _pathetic_ doll! Cue-ball is more interesting!"

"Go - Gokuu?" Kuririn stammered as even Vegeta recoiled from the bleak gaze of her eyes that then appeared over her features.

"Vegeta ..." he swallowed hard, feeling her eyes bore into his own, and almost released his grip on her wrist, but only held on with his stubbornness, unwilling to show weakness, "I don't want to fight you anymore. This has gone on long enough." Pretty black eyes shimmered in the light peeking through the leaves and branches above them, "I know ... that you're upset that I'm a Super Saiyajin now, but ... I don't know why we can't at least _try_ to get along. It's so" - her eyes somehow pierced deeper into his eyes, and he gulped down nothing once more - "childish. We really don't have to be fighting each other. We're both here on the same planet, and it looks like we're both going to stay here for a long time, so we need to find some peace with each other ... Vegeta, do you understand what I'm saying at all?"

He crossed his arms primly, and snorted, "Of course I do." Then his hands clenched her shoulders, coming close enough for their noses to almost touch, "Every word ... except for those that weren't my own name."

"I quit fighting."

--

"Uh ... I know I put it around here." Bulma suddenly smiled, and held up a large hoi-poi capsule, "Aha!" The two of them were in Bulma's lab, looking through a big chest full of numbered capsules. She handed the capsule over, "There you go, Gokuu-chan, one house ready-to-go for you."

Gokuu bubbled, "Thanks, Bulma!"

The other woman grinned, and poked her nose, causing the Saiyajin girl to giggle, "Anything for such a cutie."

A knock on the window startled them both, and Gokuu turned to look, and saw someone standing outside the window, "Piccolo! Hi!"

Behind her, Bulma muttered as Piccolo jumped in through the window, "We _do_ have a door you know."

Grunting, the large green man ignored the heiress, and turned to Gokuu, "You look better than what the others were saying. Happy - like yourself." He pulled something from out of his pocket, and offered it to her, "So ... here." In his clawed, hand with only four digits was the four-star dragonball, "I thought you might like this."

Her eyes began to fill up with tears, "Aw, thanks, Piccolo, I'm so happy!"

His shoulders tensed up in shock – of course, not one for touchy-feely crap, "Then why are you crying?"

"I'm just happy ..." the young Saiyajin wiped away the tears with a little understanding smile up at him.

"So don't cry," the Namek grumped, and then frowned softly, looking outside at the Gravity Room, "... Dear, gods ... Son, is that Vegeta?"

She seemed to quiet, "Yeah, it is."

Lips pursing thoughtfully, he didn't tear his eyes from the Gravity Room, "He took your news hard. His energy feels terrible. All shaken-up like it's about to burst ..."

Softly, Gokuu commented, "Not just that; he's empty." Frowning softly, Bulma glanced at her, watching her almost expressionless features, "But I never would have guessed that he'd reach Super Saiyajin so soon."

As the color drained from both Bulma and Piccolo, he snapped, "You mean-?"

"Yep," she said, "I only told him that to help him." Finally a familiar smile came across her face, "I want to fight him. I want to see his confidence again."

Bulma's eyes suddenly bulged out, and she stared at her oldest friend. _'I want to see his confidence again' ...? Oh, Gokuu-chan, I think that you want more than **that** from our Prince 'Charming.'_ Beginning to look very amused, she tapped her own chin in thought, _This girl's never been on a date before, and I don't think that Vegeta knows what a date **is** ... Wait, does **Son-chan** even know what a date is? This'll have to take some work on my part, but ..._ She glanced over at the content smile on Gokuu's face, _It'll be worth it to see one of her **real** smiles again._

As she ran off after a "Bye, Gokuu!" Bulma thought as she ignored Gokuu's cry of surprise, _She went through all that trouble to make him a Super Saiyajin after all!_

--

Mist from upon high broke apart to show a silhouette standing near the edge of the precipice, a hand on his hip, looking on past the horizon. He wore only a pair of loose white pants with a dark blue sash wrapped about his waist where a brown tail swung forth lazily. His hair was a wild mess of black, and his eyes were a fiercely darker black. Around his neck dangled a silver-colored chain of metal, and from it, resting on his chest, was a circular medallion; the stone in the middle was polished smooth, and a light pink – soft and comforting – while the stones around it, cut into triangles, framed it in alternating colors of light green and a blue-green.

The medallion was one that was remade over and over again, passed down to the sons and daughters of the ruling family of Vegeta-sei.

"What's with the stupid pose?"

The man – embarrassed and shocked – fell over, "Urk!"

Sighing, another man beside the first that had spoken murmured, "You know like I do, Addict."

Addict snorted, pulling the pipe from his lips for a moment, "Bored ..." it went back into his mouth, "again."

"Yup," said the other.

Addict was what he was called because that was what he essentially was - an addict of a now extinct drug in the living world. Even in death, Addict was paralyzed from the waist down from the drug. It was extinct in the living world, but not in their version of the afterlife. There the drug still thrived, and Addict still happily partook of it whenever he had the urge.

The man that had first spoken up was called Romantic. His exploits in the living realm had thus dubbed him so. He had once had sixteen wives after all.

Romantic looked up, spotting two other Saiyajin. As dissimilar as the two looked, they were, in actuality, twins. One was large, and brawny with a thick head of hair that touched the middle of his back, and the other was more skinny, and a bit taller, his own hair a bizarre jigsaw puzzle sticking up into the air. Together they were called the Twin Terrors, but separate, they were Muscle and Brain respectively. Currently, Brain was holding up a very small figure up by its ankle, peering over it curiously.

"... What is that?" Romantic finally asked of them.

His head cocked to the side, and Brain said, "I think it's one of our descendants."

"Awfully scrawny though," the other Terror murmured, and poked at the child's side making it try to take a swipe at him.

Groaning, he rolled his eyes, and shouted, "So put 'im down!" _I can't believe those two ..._ When they dropped it, he snapped, "Not drop! _Morons_!"

Examining it, Romantic vaguely noticed as Brain leaned over him, his tail dangling in reach.

It was a boy - as was certain - who sat up slowly, his eyes closed tightly as if holding back crying or even a scream of rage. He was clothed in a big pair of black boots tipped in gold that went to his knees, and an odd uniform of sorts: a dark blue gi with a black shirt underneath it. On the left side of his chest was sown in the shape of the medallion of Vegeta, and across his back on a circle of white was the insignia in black.

Without warning, the boy caught Brain's tail between his fangs.

"**_Yeeeaaaaaaggh_**!"

After Muscle dislodged him from poor Brain, he shook his finger at him - a safe distance from his mouth (and thus fangs), "No biting tails."

"Well," Romantic drawled slowly, "you guys _did_ drop him."

"That's not the point!" With such said, Brain turned his back to them all, holding up his chin, "Hmph!"

While the boy eyed his injured tail, Muscle began to chuckle in anticipation, and Addict shouted over his shoulder back at another figure who was gazing into a Seeing Orb, "Tall! Hey! Tall! ... _Tall_! I think it's your great grandson! ... Tall! Look at him!"

He spoke airily, silencing Addict, "Not until he's born." Tall didn't even look back, "It's pointless to hope for the boy's birth though. I don't know why the gods torture us. The possibility of our species flourishing is an impossible dream."

In truth, he wasn't really called Tall by the people, but among his older ancestors they tried not to upset him. His other names affiliated with the name given to all of their Ou were too disturbing, so they named him for his unusual height.

Vegeta the Slayer.

Vegeta the Murderer.

Vegeta the Killer of his own people.

Vegeta the Archenemy.

Vegeta the Enemy's Ally.

The Vegeta that had committed genocide upon his whole empire with one fell swoop when he had befriended a creature called Freeza.

"I don't care what you think," came the whisper, "I'm getting out of here."


	3. The Game

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Three: The Game

--

"_Vegeta_?" Chichi leaned forward over the table she was sitting beside, "You think she's in love with _Vegeta_? Are you feeling a bit _insane_ at all right now?"

Bulma waved her off, smirking, "I'm quite sane, thank you."

"But it's Vegeta. You know. Veg-head? Vegetable breath? Prince Vegetable? The unbelievable stuck up _ass_ that's living with you?"

"I _know_," Bulma set her tea cup down with a hard clink, "but Gokuu-chan looked so cute talking about Vegeta like that."

"About _Vegeta_?"

Seemingly ignoring her, she continued, "You could just _feel_ the oozy good love coming out of her."

"For _Vegeta_?"

Her blue eyes turned on her, attempting to pin her to her chair, "She-was-so-cute. It was like some kind of quirky little fairy tale with a Prince Charming except he's a Prince of the Vegetable Garden with a gardening hoe for a scepter."

"Aw!" Chichi's eyes sparkled before the shimmer died slightly, "But still. It's Vegeta we're talking about here. She'll be heartbroken when he remains as an asshole, and ignores her."

Thinking aloud, Bulma picked her tea back up, "Maybe she could change him for the better."

"You know," she began, "Son-chan might not even know that's she's fallen. Maybe we could help her catch that man."

"... Just how does one catch a Saiyajin anyway?"

"Food probably," the dark-haired beauty snorted lightly. "He must have a big appetite like Son-chan, right?"

"Yeah ... but he's more refined about it. Not so ... 'gimme, gimme' like Gokuu-chan. I don't think that food'll do it for him like it would for her."

Chichi tapped her cheek, and then smiled, "He trains non-stop, doesn't he? Maybe we can put them in some 'play-dates' for the two of them to get dirty together."

"Gokuu-chan's pretending not to fight anymore though ..." a lip was chewed momentarily before genius-mode kicked in, "Oh, I got it."

--

"You want me to what?"

The blue banshee smiled back at Vegeta over her shoulder as she opened her lab door, "It's a new training machine - the gist of it is this. You get to run around in a virtual reality world, and the higher level you get, the stronger you become. You can even choose what kind of world you want to train in. It supplies you with already made missions and everything that you basically need!"

A glance around the room told Vegeta that he was still pretty unsure of the whole thing - especially when he spotted Kakarotto sitting on some chair with black mask-like goggles on her head. Was she sleeping? "So it's just a fancy new way to train."

"Pretty much."

"So why should I deal with it? I bet my Gravity Room works better."

"This virtual reality makes your start at Level 1. You're weaker there than in the body you wear now."

"Why the hell would I want _that_?"

"Oh, don't put your panties in a twist." Vegeta grunted, but Bulma continued over him, "You start at Level 1 because then the virtual reality can actually shape around you, and discover what can actually test your limits."

"Interesting ..." he found his eyes trailing over to Kakarotto in her goggles wearing a beige blouse, and a dark green skirt that let her tail be shown. "So why's Kakarotto here? She no longer fights." The pang in his chest returned again at the thought, and a moment went by without his heartbeat, and his stirring breath.

The thought should have sickened him instead of saddened him, but the entire thing had not quite sunken in just yet – or rather, it had, but he was still trying to refuse the ludicrous notion. _A Saiyajin that does not fight?_ Vegeta clenched his fists into hard balls, and his fangs scraped against one another. The only thing good that had happened to him since that day was his ascension into Super Saiyajin, however, what was the point anymore if Kakarotto would not even defend herself against his assault?

The Chikyuujin laughed suddenly, bringing his mind to the present, "She's a better actress than she puts out, Vegeta."

His jaw tightened, "I see." _So the little girl thought that she could just run away from me when she realized it was useless? Fat chance! I'm going to fight that little bitch, and **win** even if it's the last thing I do!_ "Hook me up already, you accursed siren! Stop wasting my time!"

--

The first thing that he felt upon putting on the black mask was a sudden detachment from his physical body, and being shoved into a new body which wasn't his before suddenly it was, and it had never felt more complete. Somewhat disoriented, Vegeta rubbed his eye with his palm, "The hell ...?"

White. Nothingness. There was just endless bright whiteness surrounding him.

"Vegeta?"

He stiffened, abruptly alert, and he looked up quickly, "Kaka-?" _This is a nightmare!_

The Saiyajin Prince was so totally unprepared for what he was about to see, he couldn't prevent the nosebleed. The sweet, innocent Kakarotto that Vegeta was accustomed to was decked out in a two-piece ensemble of black leather. Over her thighs were the gaps showing her skin.

This piece was only staying on her by way of laced leather straps switching back and forth. The same was for the piece covering her top except the gap went down her cleavage, showing the sides of those rounded globes - they were just barely over her nipples. It was tight-fitting, and showing off almost everything despite the fact that her full breasts, and more private parts were practically covered. Yet while it covered her 'modestly,' all it did for Vegeta was want to see the naked flesh of the form that it covered and framed so rightly.

She covered her mouth in shock, "Oh, Vegeta! You're bleeding! What's wrong?"

_This is the best nightmare that I've ever had,_ he thought as he covered his nose, leaning forward so that he wouldn't choke on his own blood. Reluctantly, he looked away, gritting through fangs, "Clothes ... you need _clothes_ on. Not that, Kakarotto."

"Huh?" He heard, and then, "Um, sorry? Computer! Class; ... Mage." There was an odd popping sound, and curious, he glanced over, seeing Kakarotto no longer wearing that dreadfully delicious outfit, but a long brown skirt, and a beige blouse with some dark blue cloth covering the torso beneath her breasts which was laced down the front. "Better?"

He nodded slowly, "Yeah ..." _Why does this seem almost as bad though? ... Maybe because this outfit fits her form just as well! _ He had to admit that Kakarotto definitely wasn't a little girl any longer though. How old in the Chikyuu calendar had she been when he had first met her? She was only about twenty-four or so, and now ... Black eyes widened in disbelief, _She's an adult female Saiyajin now! Shit!_

Vegeta himself was thirty-three, and with Kakarotto twenty-eight, they were both fully grown adults. From then on, Vegeta had to be even more careful than he had been. Trying to touch her tail was a big no-no, and what with him already attempting at a grab at her, he was in deep shit.

_I have to calm down,_ he thought to himself. _Otherwise there'll be more than just the two of us, and ... and ..._ His mind went blank for a moment, _More than ..._ Eyes looked at her again, _No, bad thoughts._

Her own eyes widened, and for an instant he thought that she had figured out what was on his mind, but she ended up pointing at something dangling beside his leg, "Vegeta! Your tail!"

_Someone hates me._ Taking a hold of the tail that had indeed somehow been regenerated in this landscape, he gaped, _I'll **never** get a break, will I? This can't get any worse._

"Ah!" Kakarotto waved her arm, "I almost forgot! Vegeta, I can't get out of here! I've been trying, and trying, but I just can't get out! ... Do you think you could be too?"

--

She felt more than heard his voice rage because suddenly, he was pressing up against her. He had grabbed her wrist, and was crushing it as he spoke, "_What_? You stupid, insignificant shite! I can't believe how you can just keep forgetting important information like this!" Behind him, Gokuu watched as his tail lashed, and then Vegeta was leaning in closer, forcing her to look up into his darkened coal eyes, abruptly raging with emotion, "And what's even more terrible than holding out on me is that you went and told a nasty lie."

"A - a lie?" She stuttered, trying to pull back, but his other hand dug into the small of her back, pressing them back together, hips hard pressed against the other's. _Aren't I stronger? Why can't I get out of his arms? Is it the game?_ As her fingernails dug into the flesh of his arms, her eyes widened in astonishment when she realized that he was of the warrior class – just as she had been when she had first entered the game.

As his hand on her back tightened, his eyes flashed teal blue before becoming black one more, and his voice grew husky and deep, catching her immediate attention, "Yes, a nasty, dirty, little lie that you told me ... You won't fight anymore? Dear Kakarotto, you came back from the dead to fight. You shouldn't lie to me, Kakarotto." Their noses tapped, and she felt his hot breath on her lips, beginning to quiver as still she was unable to budge from him, "_Never_ lie to me again."

"Vegeta ..." she whispered, but she never got to complete her thought because then it escaped her when his lips touched hers, and Gokuu's stomach flipped inside of her. Vegeta was not slow to lap at numbed lips, or to shove his tongue past her lips, breaking in harshly to press into her.

Unable to move at all, Gokuu was surprised to feel tears rise up, _Vegeta, why? Are you that hurt? ... I never meant to ..._ With her eyes remaining open, she watched his own eyes flicker back and forth between black and teal, feeling her insides quiver. Dark brows furrowed angrily, Vegeta didn't stop. The male was unrelenting, sucking and biting down on her unresponsive mouth, _I'm sorry, Vegeta, but ..._ **If I can't enjoy my first kiss,** - she winced as she tasted blood in her mouth at one bite - **I'll make sure that you do.**

One second all she could feel was Vegeta, and then the next she was dropped to the ground, tending to her bruised bottom, "Vegeta, what the hell's the matter with you?"

Holding his mouth, Vegeta stared down at her with his chest heaving slowly and deeply, "Don't ... lie again. Don't lie to me."

--


	4. Imaginary

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Four: Imaginary

--

**I represent all. I believe I have a good idea of your personality now. Kakarotto, you are both compassionate and strong. You can consider yourself the archetype of valiant. Even though you have a strong personality, you can keep yourself in check. You are also considerate, so you can always see things from another's perspective. You put other's feelings above your own desires and sorrows. You are always passionate in your endeavors, and you do not give up. For those reasons, you are trusted by everyone. And you never stint on the effort to live up to that trust. You truly are a fantastic person. And, if you are not that way now, I am convinced you will become so. I will say it again. You are truly a fantastic person. If you don't realize it now, you will soon ... This is your personality. Dawn will soon arrive. And you will wake from your sleep. I represent all. I look forward to the day that I may see you again ...**

--

**I represent all. I believe I have a good idea of your personality now. Vegeta, you appear to be quite an arrogant bully. Even though you are unlikely to realize it, your arrogance causes much unhappiness among the people around you. Have you ever considered what people think about you? Even if you have, since you lack any understanding of people's feelings, it would only be a reflection of your own feelings. People have their own feelings and opinions. It is a terrible mistake to assume that others all think the way you do. But, you fail to understand that. So, when you force your opinion on someone, you may think that you did a good deed, but that person will only be unhappy. However, since you are also a tough fighter, no one dares to complain. However, if you don't change, no one will stand by you for long. To avoid that, you should learn to give a little and accommodate the opinions of other people. Although it may be too late, someone should stick with you. Learn to treat that person with respect ... This is your personality. Dawn will soon arrive. And you will wake from your sleep. I represent all. I look forward to the day that I may see you again ...**

--

Gokuu glanced back over her shoulder back into the lush forest behind herself, shivering as she heard the howling of far off monsters. It had seemed like such a simple game when Bulma had first showed it to her. Gokuu and Vegeta would have to hunt down some kind of evil demon lord, and yet somehow, she knew that they were no closer to their goal than yesterday or the day before. The both of them hadn't found any way for them to try to save and quit the game. Gokuu just hoped that Bulma realized what was happening, and didn't leave their bodies to rot while connected to their virtual game. Vegeta ... Vegeta was furious.

And seriously hurt.

Vegeta had no real wounds though, for which she was thankful - she didn't think that she could stand looking at him bloody and covered with sick gashes for all of the days they had spent in the game already. Rather, his Hit Points were dangerously low, and now he was finally feeling the effects that this entailed, so he had opted to rest. Resting sometimes let them regain some Hit Points, and Vegeta needed as many as he could get.

She was kneeling by his head, both having found a square with no monsters to ambush them. 'Squares' as they called them were roughly twenty meters squared, and each one had a chance of bunch of monsters ambushing them - materializing seemingly out of nowhere, and no matter what they did, they could never see if there were any monsters lurking in the next 'square' unless they walked into it.

Despite the screaming and wailing of the unseen creatures out in the other squares, Vegeta seemed to be sleeping quietly. Her hand randomly brushed over his forehead, smoothing up the majestic widow's peak, dipping the tips of her fingers into his hair like she might when petting an animal.

_An animal ..._ her mind whispered, and she paused, her hand freezing on his hair before she sank her fingers into his dark tresses experimentally. He moaned and shifted, so she froze again, waiting for him to still.

And still he did. Gokuu brushed her fingers up through his hair to extract them, amazed that they found no resistance whatsoever. This time, he sighed, brow furrowing slightly. He did not look peaceful as he slept. It appeared that – no matter what he was doing - Vegeta was always scowling, even in his sleep. Her eyes drooped sadly, and, caressing his cheek, Gokuu repositioned herself to lay beside him. Unbidden, the thought came into her head that she should kiss him – _Just softly, there on his temple – he'd never have to know._ However, she kept laying there, overlooking his regal features, and found that she was comparing their skin tones in her boredom.

The Prince was so very much darker than herself. Upon laying her hand to his arm, the difference was unquestionable. Not to say that Son Gokuu wasn't tan of course. She tanned very well since she was constantly out in the sun, but Vegeta's skin was at least twice as dark as her own.

Barely a second later, his eyes fluttered open, and then rested on her, "... Why are you touching me?"

"Just bored," she whispered, though she knew not why she kept her voice so quiet. "Why are you so dark?"

Blinking, he pulled his arm away from her touch, "It's my nature to be dark. I thought that you knew that better than anyone."

"No," Gokuu took his hand, "look. You're darker than me."

He blinked, and then his raspy chuckle startled her, "You're such a simpleton, Kakarotto. I'm dark because I've been under much more worse suns than your little yellow one. We had two on Planet Vegeta, in fact."

Her interest piqued, she pushed her torso up to lean against her elbows, her face resting in her hands, "Wouldn't that be really, really hot though?" After a bit of thought, she realized that Vegeta had never spoken of Planet Vegeta to her before – besides when she had been informed of her people's demise.

"Almost unbearably, and at night it froze over."

A smirk took over his lips at the look on her face, "We were a hardened people, Kakarotto, and none more so than me ... unless you count the Legendary." Vegeta snapped his mouth shut then, blinking in surprise when she began nodding her head while she listened.

"Who's the Legendary? You've mentioned it before."

Gruffly as he stood up, Vegeta said, "He was the most ruthless Saiyajin of all ... the first ever Super Saiyajin. His power was too great for his body to handle, and he accidentally blew up the planet he was on. According to the scriptures, I'm directly related to him."

"That's kind of cool," she mused. "Related to some legend ..." He grunted, and said nothing further, beginning to head for the next square, and Gokuu leapt up to follow him. When it seemed that he would speak no more of it, she decided not to press for anything more about their dead planet, and easily switched to something more important, "Do you think you're well enough now?"

"I'm as well as I'll ever be since you can't do that healing spell anymore."

Gokuu lowered her head to watch the ground that she walked over, effectively chagrined, "I didn't think that there was a limit to how many times we could use it."

"Neither of us did, just drop it."

--

_**"That's kind of cool. Related to some legend ..."**_

_'Cool,'_ he snorted softly. _It sure was 'cool' all right, Kakarotto. I got to train everyday - to my heart's content - and all for my own ambition ... and that of my father's. All very 'cool.' I'm a Super Saiyajin too now - like you. I've finally reached what ... what I've wanted for so long. Once we're finally out of this damned game, I'll kill you ... finally ... You'll be nothing in my palm, and when I close my fist, you shall be crushed within it._

He looked over his shoulder at the Saiyajin girl who was gazing up at her surroundings with such curiosity and awe, frowning when he tried to think of what he'd do after she was gone for good. Her lips pouted sweetly as she looked over into the next square, and then she idly licked them, causing his face to darken. "Keh!" Vegeta averted his eyes.

"You say something, Vegeta?" To better look at his face, she jogged up to walk beside him.

Ignoring her question, he looked her over her curious features.

--

**_Vegeta froze in shock at seeing the picture presented to him on the computer screen, and then leaned forward eagerly. Nappa had been laughing at him that morning - he wasn't anymore, of course, being sent to the regeneration tank and all - and Nappa had told Vegeta that he looked like a figure talked about in myth._**

**_"Not only are you going to be the Legendary," Nappa had laughed, "but you look just like the Saiyajin of the Hin'I region!"_**

**_"Who?" Vegeta had asked innocently - innocently enough for Vegeta being five anyway._**

**_"The Saiyajin of the Hin'I region was a coward that never gave into his own urges and instincts. He would rather pull his woman to his chest at night than to claim her!" Nappa had laughed louder then, holding his stomach, "He was no warrior, but a lover! 'Hair like a dark flame, and a grand widow's peak.'" He had reached out, and then pulled up Vegeta's young bangs to look underneath them. "Maybe you'll be a Super Saiyajin, but you won't have the guts to use your power like that coward."_**

**_Nappa was supposed to stay in the tank for the rest of the day._**

**_Dumbstruck, Vegeta touched the screen, outlining the disturbingly accurate face. It was like a mix of his grandfather and father, owning his father's hair and grandfather's un-bearded visage. With a slight grimace, he pushed up his bangs, and glanced over at the mirror he had situated on the desk. He was indeed the spitting image of the Saiyajin of the Hin'I region._**

**_Grimacing, he began looking through more pictures, yet the interpretation of the author's words did not change until finally he found one picture on the computer that differed only in the slightest from the others. In the other images, the Saiyajin of the Hin'I region had been alone, but here he was with a young woman, the both of them staring into one another's eyes. They seemed to be so absorbed with each other that the two of them did not appear to mind the destruction occurring around them, and the blood splattered over the woman's white gown._**

--

For an instant, that woman looked like Kakarotto, but he digressed. It was certain to only be his imagination and hormones than any blurred memory stirring. After all, they both had their tails back – it was natural for him to want to force her down into his bed ... or onto the forest floor as fate might have it since they were still stuck in the ridiculous game.

"It's nothing really."

"Hey, Vegeta," her cooler hand touched onto his bare shoulder, "you've been really talkative lately."

"Is that wrong?" He gruffly said, almost wanting to yank away from her.

"No, just wondering if you wanted to talk to me about something." Kakarotto's hand pulled back, and he clenched his fist, striving not to find her touch again.

_Ch', how can I even think to kill her when it's obvious that the stupid bitch has me wrapped around her little pinky? ... She should be yearning for **me**! Not the other way around!_ His fist loosened, and Vegeta directed his eyes towards her, making her head cock to the side in interest.

_... Kakarotto does seem to be doing just that though. She was the first one of us to use telepathy._ "Actually ..."

Her face brightened as she smiled sweetly, "Yeah?"

"About that kiss ..." the bright face began to become scarlet, "you weren't that bothered by it, were you?"

"Well ... if you really wanted to kiss me, I guess it was beyond me to try to stop you." Watching her, he saw her suck her bottom lip a bit into her mouth to chew on apprehensively.

His shoulders stiffened slightly, "... What if I wanted to kiss you again?"

"Do you?"

"No," he said without thinking. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Why did you want to kiss me before?" She quipped quietly.

He did a double-take, "That - That was an accident. Look, we're both Saiyajin, and now that we've got our tails back, we'll be having urges."

"... What does having a tail and being Saiyajin have to do with what you did?"

"A lot of things!" He sputtered, "As Saiyajin we have heightened senses, and our tails just so happen to be telling our senses that I'm a male and you're a female."

"... So?"

"Gah! Grrraah ..." Vegeta held his head as it was starting to hurt. "... Listen to me very carefully," he said slowly at last, "I'm a male, and you're a female. That means ... That means that our instincts want us to reproduce."

"... Reprobate-what?"

After growling in irritation, he said with a deadpan voice, "Babies."

Thus making Kakarotto's face light up in glee, "I love babies! They're so cute."

"Yes ..." he mumbled, "'cute' ..."

"... But what does that have to do with repro-whatever?"

_Kill her. Yes, kill her ..._ Vegeta sighed, _One, two, three ..._ "Are you a complete moron or something? Reproduce. Our bodies want us to reproduce. Reproducing between same species of opposite genders creates babies, Kakarotto."

"Oh ..." Again came her smile, "What's so bad about us making babies?"

His jaw dropped, "You want a baby?"

She laughed, and poked his forehead, "No, I said 'babies.' Plural, Vegeta."

Taking her wrist, Vegeta gave it a sharp jerk to bring her against him, "Just to make sure ..." her breath caught, and her eyes widened when he brushed his nose against hers, "You want" - he smirked - "_babies_ with me?"

"Ah ... is this that instincts thing again?"

He shook his head hard - maybe if he could jostle his brain hard enough he'd get into his right mind again! _I didn't even notice it this time! There was nothing for me to resist!_ "Yes ..."

"I kind of like it."


	5. Only Time

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Five: Only Time

--

Bulma hummed softly to herself as she went down into her lab, and then did a double-take as she noticed that Vegeta and Gokuu weren't reclined back in their respective chairs - hooked up to the virtual game. Rather, Vegeta was seated in his chair and staring at a sheepish Gokuu like she had grown another head.

She decided to remember at that exact moment that this wasn't the broken virtual reality game simulator. It was the broken virtual reality game simulator that she had _fixed_. The simulator had been broken in such a way that they were supposed to have been in the game until the game was completely finished. Instead, she had a lot of explaining to do ... or she could and would always remain a genius.

"Vegeta-kun! Son-chan!" Bulma cried out, catching their attention, "I've been trying to get you guys out for weeks! How'd you get out on your own?"

The Saiyajin male went back to gaping at Gokuu, "She ..."

Gokuu smiled, and scratched the back of her neck nervously, "I started bowing and making faces at one of the kings because Vegeta said I should be more respectable to royalty, and then the king started talking all flat and bored, and asked if we wanted to save and quit. And ..." She smiled brightly, "We're back!"

Slowly beginning to relax as Gokuu told her about all the exciting things they had done in the game, Bulma glanced over at Vegeta to see if even that short amount of time stuck with Son Gokuu had done something to him. The prince seemed more bewildered than starry-eyed of her, and got up to leave her lab. However, he stopped short just before he left the room entirely, and turned to face them, "Kakarotto, I've decided to accept your proposal. I'll be ready shortly."

_Pro ..._ Bulma's cheek twitched, and she looked at Gokuu's smiling face after Vegeta left, _Proposal?_

--

"I wonder why Bulma-chan was acting so weird when you said you'd move in with me," Kakarotto said, one of Vegeta's bags tucked under her arm as they flew to her home on the mountain.

He grunted in reply, "Who knows. I'll never understand you and your Chikyuujin ways."

"... Well, now you don't really have to learn about them. You won't have neighbors where you're living, so the only person you'll see is me."

Vegeta glanced over at her, his eyes slightly narrowed as he thought that over. Their little talk in the game had been ... intriguing to say the least. If Kakarotto was the only other person that Vegeta would be seeing for a long time, he didn't mind at all ... unless she began to be annoying like always, and ruined any especially good mood that he was in.

Sadly, nothing else had gone on between them ever since that talk. She appeared to be keeping some kind of distance from him - close to him, and smiling like usual, but Kakarotto seemed to be distracted half of the time. Before, she had told him that she liked how his instincts had gone a bit wild, and yanked her close. _Perhaps,_ he thought, _I should have just tried taking her. She probably wouldn't have minded that much anyway ... Gods, maybe ..._ Vegeta licked his lips, _she could be mine already, and ... Fuck! I caught a damned bug in my mouth!_

As he began spitting, Kakarotto said to him, "It's just over that ridge, Vegeta."

Grumbling to himself, he nodded, and set down on the ground in front of the small round house.

--

Kakarotto had only set his bags on her couch before smiling at him and asking for a sparring match. They had gone outside to do this, and well into the night they had trained, sweating all over the place. At the end of their match, Kakarotto had smiled her brightest, and gone around the back of the house, saying that she would prepare a bath. All in all, Vegeta didn't think that the treatment was half bad.

He still had a problem of deciding whether he wanted to kill her or push her against a wall, but all was well in his world.

Stretching his slightly cramped sides, his mind went over the looks on the other warriors' faces when Kakarotto had told them that he would be living with her. Many of them had heard about the unfortunate accident with them and the game, and had come over to see how they were doing. The most amusing face among them had been the bald, short man's. It had been a most satisfying surge of feelings that swept through him at the sight of his proverbial punctured heart.

Naturally, however, Kakarotto had been upset that her little friends were upset, and had tried consoling them with her warm smiles and hugs. In fact, all of them were rather shocked and dismayed that Kakarotto was leaving with some other man – not that this was voiced aloud, of course, and nor did Kakarotto seem to understand the true reason for their woe over the matter.

She probably would have gotten much too solicitous over them if it hadn't been for the sudden realization that Vegeta's tail was back. The fact that it had shown up in the game had been startling enough, but its appearance _after_ leaving the machine was a mystery.

Bulma had suggested that it was due to the fact that it was how Vegeta saw himself in his mind – thus, the game had supplied the tail to him, and his mind, fooled by the game, grew the tail back for him. However, whatever the reason for it growing back, Vegeta was very much pleased with it.

Of course, Kakarotto had yanked, and nuzzled it affectionately, but he was still pleased just the same - if not a tad embarrassed from her spectacle.

The fact that she had showed her own kind of lack of control with that gesture assured Vegeta that he wouldn't be the only one that wanted something from the other. Perhaps, Vegeta could teach her just how much fun tails could be between the sheets. He could feel his tail twitch in its own anticipation, and he leaned back against the wall of her house.

Not a bad day at all ...

"Bath's ready!" Kakarotto called from the other side of the house, and Vegeta smirked, heading over around the back of the house where the sound originated from.

"About ti ..." his jaw dropped as he watched Kakarotto finish stripping, "I - we ... You want to bathe ... with me?"

She climbed into what looked like some oversized barrel with steam rolling out of it, "Sure, why not?"

Vegeta quickly felt his bravado smash to the ground once face-to-face with the lovely, naked flesh of this Saiyajin woman, "I ... I guess it'll be cold if I wait ..."

"Well," she drawled lightly while looking down at herself, "I do like taking a nice, long soak after training."

He just barely managed to keep himself from shuffling his feet like some teenager before he began to strip, "Fucking hell. I don't see why I have to bathe with some commoner like you ..."

After he settled into the water with her, and making sure that Kakarotto had gotten an excellent view of the goods - Vegeta liked to think himself as well-endowed, and he was - he leaned back against the side, letting the steaming hot water soothe his muscles.

Kakarotto then stirred beside him to move a bit closer, and he fought back his smirk ...

"Vegeta, what's that?"

Frowning, he opened his eyes, looking at her, "What's what?"

"That," she pointed at his lap.

He nearly froze in astonishment, looking between her and his own body, and wondered if his day becoming steadily worse as the hours went on, "You can't possibly mean you've never seen a male before."

"'Male?'"

"Oh, come on. You know about the difference between men and women." _Right? You know, right?_

"Most men I know have flat chests ..." She poked his chest, "Your's is about half flat."

_It **is** getting worse!_ "Of course it is, _I_ have some actual muscle ... So, you've never seen a nude man before?"

The female shrugged, "Bulma always made me look away before I saw anything more than their butt ... And Grandpa Gohan made us both take separate showers in the waterfall after I could do it by myself. I don't remember much before that." She stared at his chest for a while before she cupped her breasts, and Vegeta felt his member slowly react, "But why's my chest soft if your's is hard?"

"Be - because you're a woman! Why are you asking _me_?"

"Am I not supposed to?"

"You should try asking that blue-haired woman. Besides, if you really wanted to know, why haven't you been asking _her_ more about it?"

"I don't know," she said softly. "I guess it just occured to me now ..."

"... You truly know nothing about your own body?" Vegeta tilted his head to the side as he peered at her, watching a drop of water outline her cheek as it fell down her face.

"Not really, not about these things at any rate ... And there's this stuff in my chest" - she lifted up one breast as if to show him better, and squeezed the flesh part of it, making his member grow totally stiff - "... there's none in it right now, I guess." Letting her breast ease back into place, she continued, "But it's white, and I don't really know what it's for. Do you?"

"Milk," he said, his voice hoarse due to the dry feeling of his mouth, causing him to want to lunge forward to try extracting some milk for himself. "Saiyajin milk is very nutritious, but even so, sometimes it's not enough to feed an infant ... so ... so females that are old enough produce milk even if they don't have a child."

"I've never heard of milk from a girl before ... Does it taste good?"

A hand of his that was resting on the side of the barrel clamped down hard, causing the wood to creak, "It's ... for babies, Kakarotto, not adults." He had said it mostly to restrain himself even as he thought about trying to show her otherwise. _By the gods, is she trying to torture me?_

"Why not?"

"Kakarotto, don't argue with me right now!" He snarled, doing his damnedest to not just rape her on the first night.

She pouted, and looked like she was about to say more before she paused in slight surprise, "Hey ... what happened to that?" Kakarotto was pointing at his lap again, and Vegeta abruptly remembered that water was see-through.

Hurriedly, he covered himself, "Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Stop asking me about everything!" Vegeta climbed out of the barrel-tub, "Just ask that blue banshee or that harpy or - or ... or someone that's not me!"

--

_What was **that** all about?_ Gokuu wondered while she dried her hair, and then wrapped the same towel around her body as she found that the night air was chilling her body. Looking up when she felt him return from wherever he had gone to in the forest, she silently noticed how intense his black eyes were on her. He looked exhausted too, which was strange, and she tried to think of just what he might have been doing out there in the forest to make himself seem so bone-weary.

"Tired yet?"

"Where do I sleep?" He asked.

"In a bed, silly."

He sighed, and rolled his eyes, looking, indeed, rather tired as he said, "Just show me where, Kakarotto."

Nodding, she walked into the house, leading him to her room, "I only have one bed though so we'll share it, okay?"

Vegeta grunted, and laid down at the very edge of the bed, face to the wall. Earlier, he had pulled some training pants on before disappearing into the woods, but he didn't bother taking them off for bed. Remembering how he seemed to act towards her nudity, Gokuu turned around before dropping her towel into her dirty clothes basket, and retrieved a shirt which she put on.

She laid beside him, already feeling her eyes droop.

She took that deep breath that always seemed to lull her completely into dreamland, but a scent stopped her. Blinking in surprise at the new smell, the Saiyajin looked over at Vegeta to see if he was the culprit since she had never smelled it before, and he was a new addition to her room at night. Again, she breathed in deeply, and then smiled when the spicy, cinnamon-like musk engulfed her heightened senses. Her tail curled at the end, coiling into a spring as her stomach tightened in excitement. Something felt very ... stirring about being there beside him and smelling that _heavenly_ perfume ...

Swallowing nothing, she whispered just in case he was still asleep, "If you want, I could get you a bed soon."

He didn't answer, so she almost thought that he was well and surely sleeping, but then, "All right."

She didn't realize until after she had heard that word that she had been hoping for him to deny the use of another bed.


	6. Banana Pancakes

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Six: Banana Pancakes

--

Gokuu woke up slowly, her head feeling especially heavy, and chock full of balls of cotton. Everything was indistinct and hazy. If she were to lift up her head, she knew that she'd be dizzy for the next few minutes. She almost felt as if she was waking up from a long time of being ill, however, she wasn't stuck with the bad aftertaste of an illness. Rather her whole form fell newly constructed, and clean - purified.

Encased in her bubble of awakening senses, she first heard the light pattering of rain waiting for her outside. Not that she could have afforded to go out for some training today. The new house that she had retrieved from Bulma to replace her old home – ruined due to her time away off-world – was still being moved into, and it had gotten slightly dusty from her stay in the game.

Thus there was no reason to go outside to train. Son Gokuu wasn't that fond of rain anyway - she preferred hot summer days to any type of cold. Maybe later the rain would go away, and she could go out for a breather, but for that current moment in her life, she wanted to sleep ... just a bit longer.

She was just so tired, and felt so incredibly comfortable laying there.

The rain might stop when she next opened her eyes after all, and then perhaps the warm, fuzzed out sensations that she was experiencing would have faded by then too. Heavy, her eyes dropped back down to rest her eyelashes on her cheeks, taking a deep breath to sigh.

However, while she continued to laze there, she could feel her body try to wake her up despite the rain and the nice feeling of being able to sleep in after so many long years of fighting and training. Those years spent running to King Kai's place, training on the spaceship headed for Namek, and those days on Yardrat ... she had never really had any time to just be lazy.

_And don't you know it, but even now I can't get into the habit of just relaxing,_ she thought with weary irritation.

She yawned widely, but still didn't budge from her position, wanting to wait out the drowsy lazing feelings. Gokuu wanted to let her whole body awaken before she would let herself get up. There truly didn't seem to be any reason to wake up just yet after all: she was not yet hungry, she didn't have to use the bathroom in any way, and there were no real immediate chores for her to do.

Next - after her sense of hearing came into being - she felt air stir slowly next to her head. It brushed over the back of her neck, disturbing a few strands of her black unruly hair, but she wasn't so bothered by it, and so just reveled in it. Gokuu briefly wondered if she might have left the window open or turned a fan on some time in the night, but couldn't remember any of those things happening. The air was much to warm to be coming from outside or a fan. In fact, it was rather hot, and almost uncomfortable, but she rather liked it there.

So the air was left to touch her neck and ruffle a bit of her hair to create soft tingles down her neck.

Gradually, she became aware that her tail was wrapped around something. She thought about unraveling her tail, but decided against it as that would merit movement on her part, and she had yet to desire waking up. Instead, she studied what her tail was wound about, not bothering to turn over or move her head to look.

Whatever it was appeared to be thin - like a bar or rod - but more supple and willowy. Also, it seemed to be just as wrapped around her tail as her tail was wrapped around it.

_Maybe I should check that out ..._ And the rain fell down harder, so the thought escaped her, bringing her attention to the rain drumming against her window.

Her eyes creaked open slowly and carefully as if the hinges were old and worn, and they might fall apart if handled wrongly. Gokuu half glared out at the rain. Sometimes, she liked to look at the rain, but she would soon become bored because she was unable to go outside to enjoy the sun which the clouds were covering.

A deep exhalation of breath, and she closed her eyes, smiling gently as she felt nice, warm, and safe from the rain right where she was.

She sighed again, and then her brows furrowed lightly. There was an odd fragrance in the room, and she tried to recall from where and when she had smelled it before. Tremors buried themselves in her gut, stopping to swarm her stomach, and Gokuu took another deep breath to find the source. It came from very near by – rather it appeared to enfold her totally in the scent.

Groaning softly as she kept smelling it, she finally began to stir in her bed, stretching as she wallowed in the swamp of aroma. Gokuu turned over in the bed, upon noticing that it was stronger on that side of the bed. Her eyes fluttered open, and her breath caught in her throat.

Vegeta kept his gaze steady with hers, and she squirmed uneasily in his arms. It was no wonder that she felt so comfortable - his arms were clasped around her. She was surprised that she hadn't even felt them and the heat the bare arms and chest provided for her. Momentarily, she wondered what it would feel like if she had forgone the shirt last night, and went nude. How hot would his naked skin feel against hers?

He spoke first, "How long have you been awake?"

"A while ... I don't know," she whispered. "You hungry yet?"

Opening his mouth before pausing, Vegeta seemed to study her before he answered, "You _can_ cook, right?"

"Course I can," she smiled slightly, "I don't think I'd be alive right now if I didn't have _some_ skill with it."

He grunted deeply, and she had felt it in his chest which was pressed tightly to her own. She attempted to extract her tail from whatever it was wrapped around, but discovered that she couldn't. Looking under the sheets, she saw that her tail was twisted around Vegeta's in a complex manner, and his tail didn't seem to want to let go.

When she tried to pull their tails apart by hand, Vegeta grabbed her wrists, "What are you doing?"

"I thought you were hungry."

"Not yet," and it sounded as if there had been some pleading in those simple words, so she gazed up at him to gauge his face. However, it was just as impassive as ever.

Confused, she said, "But-"

"No," he insisted. "Don't go."

"Vegeta-kun," she said, beginning to pull back her wrists which he refused to release, "could you possibly ... maybe ... let go?"

"Let go of what?" Vegeta started to lean towards her, and Gokuu stomach tried leaping up her esophagus. As of yet, his eyes would not break away from hers, and she visibly flinched when she felt his breath hit her temple.

"My ... my tail ... my hands. Let go ..." she said, unable to get rid of the beginning of panic in her voice. _He can't want to kill me, can he …? He's too calm about it!_

His mien - from the overbearing stare in his eyes to his set lips - terrified her for no particular reason, and she could not understand why. She had seen the same intensity before during their first battle on Chikyuu. That same fervor had been there when he was dying on Namek - when he begged for her to kill Freeza - and again it had briefly reared its head during their spar the night before. Those types of avidity, she could easily understand. His want and need for her to kill the beast that had haunted him so, the ferociousness of the fight ...

That was easy to understand.

_This_, however, was totally new to Gokuu. She couldn't comprehend the reasoning behind his desire to hold onto her and keep her constrained against his hard chest. The only thing she could think of was that he wanted to crush her – completely and with little effort. Son Gokuu could envision herself as she had been almost four years before when she had been at the mercy of an Oozaru who was the same man constraining her just then.

He said against her forehead, "Calm down. I'm not hurting you. Besides, you don't _need_ to get up, do you?" There was that certain edge of pleading again, and she tilted her head up to stare at his eyes which looked like they were ready to beg. "We can stay right here ..." he said softly, her bangs waving from his hot breath which, she realized, must have been that hot air on her neck only moments before, "We don't need to get up yet. Besides, there's nothing for us to do out in the rain."

"Vegeta-kun, please, let go."

He scowled, "What's wrong with you? I'm not hurting you at all."

"I just ... _please_, Vegeta!" She started to struggle against him, loosening one wrist from his grasp.

His currently free hand then shot forward, grabbing the back of her head, and pressed her tighter to his chest, "Stop this foolishness! I'm not going to hurt you!"

"Vegeta, stop it! I - I don't ..." she gazed up at him, trying to abstain from lashing out, and breaking his neck, "You're scaring me. I don't get it!" Gokuu's heart hammered violently in her ribcage, rattling almost hard enough to burst out.

With a jerk, he shoved her down into the bed, climbing over her to keep her held down, "What are you talking about? What's there not to understand?"

"You!" She almost felt like shrieking, "You're not acting like yourself ..." Gokuu nearly sobbed with the sudden thought that overtook her senses, "You're not Vegeta-kun ..."

His eyes widened, and lost the unfamiliar zeal, dying away to shock, "What ...?"

Nevertheless, she couldn't try to start trusting him again. Using his surprise to her advantage, Gokuu tore herself away from him, his tail being numbed enough that her own tail came loose with ease as she jumped out of bed, and ran from the room.

"Ka ... Kakarotto! Where ...?" She heard him growl something low before he stormed out of the room.

Feeling slightly safer pacing the kitchen floor, and thus out of his arms, she watched his eyes and lips twitch in aggravation. There. That was her Vegeta – the Vegeta that she knew. Not that stranger that had slept beside her all night.

Gokuu smiled in slight relief when he snarled, and stalked toward her, "Fine! I get it! You're just some temptress trying to put me off as a rapist!"

"... Huh?"

"Grah! You decide _now_ to act stupid and innocent?"

The phone rang.

Confused, Gokuu turned to glance at the phone, _Who'd be calling at this time?_ Starting to walk to it, her hand was grabbed by Vegeta.

"Don't you _dare_. I'm talking to you."

"But the phone's ringing ..."

"And you need to talk to me. You're the one acting strangely about all of this," that begging look returned in a small amount to his words, "Why won't you tell me something that makes sense for a change? I thought you said you liked me being rough. You liked the instincts thing."

_Instincts ...? Is he talking about how our tails make us want to make babies? That repro ... reprobates ... repercussion ..._ "I ... I do like that, but that ... that wasn't it. I don't like what you were just doing ..."

He growled loudly, "Then, I guess _I'm_ the one that doesn't understand ..."

"... Can I answer the phone now?" She moved closer to the phone, but his grip on her tightened.

"No! What didn't you like about it?"

Stretching for the phone, she pulled it off the hook, and answered it, "Hello?"

"Hi, Gokuu-chan," Kuririn said from the other side of the line.

"Damn it, Kakarotto! I'm still talking to you!"

"Gokuu-chan? What's going on over there?"

She frowned at Vegeta, "Sorry, Kuririn, I think I might have to call you back."

"Gokuu, are you okay? Is Vegeta trying to hurt you?"

"I ... don't think so," she said into the phone, watching as the Prince of all Saiyajin fumed, and then smiled blissfully at the sight of Vegeta back to his usual self.

"Kakarotto, if you don't get off that thing right now and talk to me, I won't be responsible for my actions. Get ... off ..."

She smiled at him as she said to Kuririn, "At least, he's getting back to normal. He was acting really weird this morning when I woke up. I don't think that he's a morning person."

"You keep forgetting something, Kakarotto," he sneered, "I'm a Super Saiyajin too, now, and I'm the only one that stands a real chance of breaking your face."

"... You want to spar?"

"No!"

Kuririn murmured, "Uh, Gokuu, if you need any help, we'll be right over."

"I know, but I think I can handle him now ... the other one I couldn't."

"'Other one?'" A new voice came on, and Gokuu smiled.

"Tenshinhan? Are you guys on speakerphone?"

"Kakarotto, get off!"

"Uh, yeah, we are," Yamucha's nervous voice was heard next.

Balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder, she put her free hand into his face, "Sorry, guys, just a minute. Ha!" An energy blast to his face caused Vegeta to let her go, and she held the phone to her other ear, switching, with the newly released hand, "Okay, so what's up?"

"Did you just hit Vegeta with an energy ball?" Kuririn asked.

"Yeah."

Yamucha laughed, "In your own house too!"

She opened her mouth to respond to that, but then her mouth just remained open, gaping at Vegeta as he abruptly thrummed with power - the strands of his hair flickering from black to gold, and back and forth like that with his eyes which turned into a sharp teal. Gokuu breathed out, quietly awed after both new colors were solid on his figure, "Oh, _wow_ ... You're gold ..."

There was a long, collective pause from both of the parties present - whether present on the other side of the world or not.

"What?" Kuririn finally asked with a flat voice. "You okay there?"

"Yeah," she said faintly. "Talk to you guys later."

"Huh? Wha-?" She hung up the phone.

He smirked, "Now that's more like it. See, Kakarotto? It'll just be easier for you in the long run to give in to the might of a true Super Saiyajin warrior!"

"Yeah, okay, can we spar now?" Without her consent, she felt her tail begin to wag in excitement.

"What ...?" He shook his head, "No! That's out of the question! We still need to talk."

"Pretty please?" She burst into her own silver form of Super Saiyajin, her red eyes looking deeply into the robin blue eyes of Vegeta.

"I ... uh ... maybe?"

Gokuu's face broke into a bright smile, "Great! Let's go!"

As she yanked him outside, Vegeta shouted, "Damn it, Kakarotto! It's still raining!"


	7. Places You Have Come to Fear the Most

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Seven: The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most

--

Bulma's jaw became ajar when she opened the door, "Son-chan! Vegeta!"

The Namek stepped inside, pushing the two Saiyajin along in front of him, "I found them training in the rain, soaked to the bone."

For an answer, Son Gokuu only smiled, red nose sniffling, "It was so much fun!"

"Are you mad? You got me sick! I _never_ get sick, Kakarotto!"

"Wait ..." Bulma said, "if they're sick, why don't they just go back to Gokuu-chan's house, and sleep it off? Why're they _here_?"

Piccolo grunted, his eyes trailing after Vegeta and Gokuu who went deeper inside, "After they finished training in the rain, they went inside, and Gokuu gave Vegeta all of her cough syrup ... _all_ of it. Then they proceeded to visit the near by town, and bought even more cough syrup and something called ..." he said the next part carefully, "Dayquil ... If you were to go to Son's home, you'd find seventeen empty bottles of cough syrup, and five empty bottles of Dayquil. _That_ is why they are here."

"You let them get high off of Dayquil and cough syrup?"

"Under normal circumstances, no, but seeing as they were still both Super Saiyajin during consumption, I took a moment to think over whether I wanted anything broken."

"And why did they let them buy so many bottles?"

"I think that the real winner was when Vegeta tore down aisle four through fifteen."

Gokuu hugged Bulma, "Don't worry, Bulma-chan, Pi-chan said you'd take good care of us. _I_ believe you can do it!"

The woman groaned, "Yeah, just dump two drunken Saiyajin on me ..."

"I just did," Piccolo said, and then flew away.

"Woman! Where's the-?" There was a loud crash, and Bulma jumped in shock, "Found it!"

"_Vegeta_!"

--

"No."

"But ..." Gokuu turned her large eyes upon Vegeta, and watched as the corner of his eye twitched. "But why not?"

Snorting, he said, "Because I'm much too weak right now."

"Then ... then just take off your shirt."

"... Okay," and Vegeta stripped his shirt, throwing it across the room where it landed on Tenshinhan's head as he had just walked into the room with the others.

"Gokuu-chan!" Kuririn shouted, and Gokuu beamed at him, waving.

"Hi, Rin-chan!"

He stopped short, "... What?"

The male Saiyajin shrugged, and ran his fingers up and down her arms - being as she was situated in the prince's lap, "Hell if I know. She's been calling Piccolo 'Pi-chan' though. He left as soon as he could."

Muttering, Tenshinhan handed the shirt back to him, "You seemed to have misplaced this."

Staring at it as if he had never seen it before, Vegeta looked from it to his bare chest a few times before saying, "So I have ... Kakarotto, did you take my shirt off?"

"No," she said as she began to pet his tail, "but I told you to take it off."

He shifted under her, eyes widening, "Hey, careful with that."

"Sorry," she said, but she kept petting it, eyes trailing over the appendage with intrigue.

"... So you told me to strip?"

"Yup."

"And I complied?"

"Uh huh."

Vegeta snorted, "Why would I obey _you_?"

"I wanted to see you as a Super Saiyajin again, but you said you were too tired, so then I told you to take off your shirt, and you did, and so ... well, here we are."

"... You wanted me shirtless? ... Why?"

The nervous eyes of the men that had come into the room watched as this exchange went on - the two Saiyajin seemingly completely oblivious to them.

"This is why," Gokuu then reached over, and twisted his right nipple.

"Yaagh! Bakarotto!" He smacked her over the head, making her fall over, and her cold feet somehow slipped underneath his thighs. In his surprise, Vegeta tried leaping back only to cause the couch to tip back over, and he fell over on the other side of the couch while it righted itself back up.

Bulma shouted from another room, "What'd you guys break this time?"

The Saiyajin girl stood up, and patted herself down, "I don't think I got anything broken."

Vegeta grunted from the other side of the couch, "Kakarotto, I really don't think that the blue one was referring to _you_."

Gasping, she leapt over the couch to tackle Prince Vegeta, "Oh, no! Are _you_ okay?"

"Of course, I am, now get off of me!"

Gokuu's eyes filled up with tears, "But ... I really didn't hurt you?"

He sat up, rubbing his head, "Stupid, of course not! I'm a great and powerful Super Saiyajin! The Prince of all Saiyajin!"

Sniffling, she wailed, "But there's just the two of us; everybody else is dead."

"Mmm ... just means" - Vegeta yawned - "I get to have an easier job. Royalty watches after their people after all ... mnnph ..." There was a loud thud as Vegeta collapsed from his seated position - his head smacking hard against the floor.

Her mouth dropped open, but it took her a while for her to scream, "He's dead! I killed him! Kuririn! Piccolo! Somebody help me! Didn't mean to do it," she whimpered, scooting back away from Vegeta's body, and hugging her knees close to her chest. When they went over to check on the Saiyajin, Gokuu bent her head to sob into her arms, "So sorry, Vegeta - didn't mean to let you die ..."

"Go ... Gokuu-chan, he's okay. He just ... fainted," Kuririn said, going over to pat her back.

She lifted her head up, and smiled slightly up at him, "Really?" As Kuririn nodded, her smile vanished, and she let her head drop again, "Oh, Kami-sama, if he's not okay ..." Another sob shook her body.

"Really, Gokuu-chan, he's going to be all right," Kuririn soothed, and then snorted. "Unfortunately for us."

Looking up at them, Gokuu spared a glance at the prone form of Vegeta, and nodded uneasily. Yamucha called Bulma out to where they were, and the angry woman made them put him on the couch, telling them to keep a close eye on him.

--

"Did too," she whispered.

"Did not," he grunted, and turned onto his side, facing away from her, and towards the backrest of the couch.

"Did too. You fainted, and your head hit the floor really hard. Doesn't your head hurt?"

"... No."

"Come on, Vegeta! I was really worried about you!"

Growling, he responded, "Well then, stop worrying about me, Kakarotto! As you can see, I'm perfectly fine, and I'd be even better if you'd just leave me alone!"

"Vegeta-kun!" Kakarotto lunged at him, the couch tipping over from the tackle, and they rolled across the floor of the Capsule Corporation. "I don't want to leave you! What if you faint again, and hit your head, and don't wake up again? What am I supposed to do then?"

She had landed on top of him to shout down at him, and he gaped at her, "I ... you ..."

"Vegeta! Gokuu! What are you two doing on my living room floor?"

"It's _her_ fault!" Vegeta said as he attempted to shove her off, however, the girl held fast to his chest.

Crying, and thus getting his still bare chest wet, Kakarotto said, "I thought you died, you big moron!"

"Only because you were too inebriated to know any better!"

She kissed him, and Vegeta went very still, shocked into a state of vegetation. When she pulled back, he didn't think he could breathe, but her voice shocked him back into the routine, "I was so worried about you. I thought you were going to die on me like before when Freeza killed you." Trembling, Kakarotto sobbed, "You all died on me. I couldn't save any of you, and you all died, Vegeta ... I don't ... You can't die anymore, okay? I beg of you, Vegeta."

After a moment, he looked at Bulma in a bit of a daze, "Is she always like this when intoxicated?"

"She's ... she's never _been_ drunk before, Vegeta. Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what she'll do next."

Kakarotto slumped against his chest, crying softly into his shoulder where her head rested. The Chikyuujin female knelt beside them, and tapped her shoulder, "Son-chan? Are you okay?"

She sniffled, and said, "No."

"Oh," she soothed, "come here, Gokuu-chan. Why don't you and I go make some snacks for the boys? I bet that all Saiyajin have your appetite, so Vegeta could be starv-"

"Vegeta, don't starve!"

"Son-chan! Come 'ere!" Yanking the Saiyajin woman to her feet, she then pulled her in the direction of the kitchen. "Think that they'll like some barbecue?"

"I love barbecues!"

His eyebrow twitching in irritation, Vegeta averted his eyes from her tail, looking over the fallen couch at the other warriors who had undoubtedly seen everything. However, they seemed to not want to comment, and half of them just glowered silently at the prince. With a short laugh, he got up, and tipped the couch back into place.

Smirking, he rubbed his nose - asshole-mode activated, "What the fuck's with you?"

--

Gokuu listened to Bulma sigh softly as she turned the patty over on the grill. Glancing at her, Gokuu saw her grin slowly, "_So_ ..."

"... So?" Gokuu said.

"So when did you and Vegeta become an item? That was a hot moment back there."

"'An item?' Me and Vegeta are friends if that's what you mean."

The rich heiress laughed lightly, "Don't play coy with me, Son-chan. That was a dandy little kiss you gave to Vegeta back there, and despite him being so tense about it, the fact that he didn't blow you up must mean that he liked it."

"But he's kissed me before," Gokuu turned back to making her shish kebab, stabbing through the little chunks of beef and chopped vegetables. She giggled then, and started up a little mantra, "One for you, one for me. One for you, two for me …"

Bulma smiled brightly, _Finally! Gokuu-chan and I can have some nice girl-to-girl talks! This is going better than I hoped!_ "Oh, yeah? When'd that happen?"

"In the game ... he was really, really mad at me ..." the volume of her voice dropped near to the end, so Bulma almost hadn't caught that.

"He was mad at you, so he kissed you ... huh, must be some Saiyajin thing," she frowned slightly, thinking that over. If that was what a kiss meant for them ... a bunch of anger and hate ...

"Bulma-chan?"

"Yes?" She directed her eyes to Gokuu.

Their eyes met, "It wasn't my fault they all died, right?"

Bulma gasped softly as Gokuu's hands began to shake, and she dropped her spatula on the table to go over and hug her tightly, "No! It was never your fault, Gokuu-chan. You were never to blame for their deaths."

"But if I had been just a little bit faster ..."

"Shhh, I know, Gokuu, I know. But you did all that you could. I've told you that before." _Oh, Kami-sama! I thought that we were over this!_ "But it's okay for it to hurt. It's supposed to hurt, but now I think it's time to heal a bit. You did nothing wrong. Everything's okay _now_, isn't it?" _I never thought that seeing Kuririn and Vegeta die was so painful for you. You were always so happy, and fun-loving. All of that death ... it must've really gotten to you. How many other people did you see die on Namek? What was it like to see Tenshinhan, Piccolo, and Yamucha all dead? And Chaotzu blown into pieces ..._ She swallowed uneasily, but asked anyway, "Son-chan, you can tell me about it. I'll listen."

"He cried," she whispered. "Vegeta was crying when he died - he looked at me, and he cried, and then he died. He was just so beaten ... in his head. He just kind of gave up somewhere in the fight ... I saw then ... he wasn't such a bad guy." Bulma's hand found the more muscled one to squeeze it reassuringly, "He didn't deserve that ... and I didn't even see the attack that came for Kuririn ..." the volume of her voice dropped again, "He was there one moment, laughing with me, and then the next ... Freeza killed them both ... there ... in front of my eyes."


	8. Behind Blue Eyes

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Eight: Behind Blue Eyes

--

_**Smirking, he rubbed his nose - asshole-mode activated, "What the fuck's with you?"**_

Kuririn answered Vegeta before the others, "We're having a little problem with you and your attitude, Vegeta."

"Yeah," echoed Yamucha, "especially since you're throwing yourself all over Son-chan."

"... You _did_ just watch Kakarotto tackle and kiss me, right?" Vegeta asked casually, "Not the other way around? Because the way you're insinuating all of this makes it sound like ..."

"Shut up!"

Clearing his throat, Tenshinhan patted the bandit's back as if to soothe him, and said, "What I think everybody's saying is that-"

"I should lay off of the woman that doesn't belong to any of you?"

"No," he said, "I'm saying you should - okay, maybe you should lay off a bit. Son-chan's obviously not in the best of mindsets right now. Any ... stimulation might set her off in a way that none of us will be prepared for. Gokuu's never - and I mean - _never_ gone off the deep end like this. She doesn't break down and cry."

Vegeta raised an eyebrow, "You pansies just said that she's never been drunk before to your knowledge. So what if she's a sad drunk? And what makes you think that I'm worsening her condition in any way?"

After a silent moment, Kuririn sighed, "We don't know _what_ to think anymore, Vegeta. We're just worried about Gokuu-chan. That's why we're here. We felt Piccolo show up while you two were fighting, and then you three went here. We were concerned about what happed to her. Your energies were strange."

"Aw ... how very sweet," Vegeta smirked, "now stay the fuck away from my bitch."

Their heads snapped to attention, and Yamucha exclaimed, "What?"

"You heard me," he sneered, and then he jumped over the couch, starting to approach. "Stay away from my woman, and I won't have to break too many bones."

The short bald one clenched his teeth, and Vegeta thought he heard them grinding together, "Damn it, Vegeta, if you lay one hand on her wrong-"

"You'll what?" The Saiyajin sneered, and then the much shorter Chikyuujin backpedaled away fast. "That's what I thought ... you're all still pathetic. What do any of you really think that you can offer to a full-blooded Saiyajin woman? I think even one as sweet and innocent as Kakarotto would know that she's missing out on something."

"... At least, _we_ care about her, Vegeta."

--

"They're coming over again?" He seethed as Kakarotto just smiled and nodded. "What's the reason this time?"

"Picnic."

"Great," Vegeta said sarcastically, "just what I needed ..."

She said quietly after a moment, "Well, I could say that I'm not feeling well ... or we could go have a picnic somewhere else so we don't bug you."

"No," he sighed, "if you said you didn't feel good, they'd come over to make sure that you're on the way to recovery ... Stupid women thinking that I can't take care of you myself."

Kakarotto smiled brightly, "You'd take care of me?"

"N - no!"

"But you just said-"

"What I just said means nothing!"

A soft thoughtful frown came to her lips then, and she nodded slowly, "Okay ..."

_Fuck,_ he thought when she left the room, _she gave me that damned look again! She's never looked at me like that before ... like I'm being analyzed. Hell, I get that all the time from Freeza's men and her friends. If I wanted someone to look at me like that all the time, I'll just go back into space. Maybe just blow the shit out of this planet on the way out ... What the hell does Kakarotto and those insipid women talk about all the time anyway? That has to be the cause for that stupid expression ... And why does she have to invite those ... **males** over so often?_

With a soft groan, he reclined back in the chair, rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hands.

He had thought that he had gotten some sort of message across to them while drunk off of those disgusting liquids Kakarotto had given to him. However, this seemed to not be the case, and Vegeta was stuck with their presence every week. Every minute that they were about the premises, Kakarotto was surrounded by them, and Vegeta couldn't get as close as he would usually like to. Of course, he was still winning in his own way. Almost night after they left, she would prepare a bath, and if he was especially lucky, he could watch her strip before joining her in the water.

_But who am I kidding? Nothing happens in that stupid barrel anyway ..._ Looking up when she passed by him to go to the kitchen, his eyes narrowed slightly, _She stopped asking questions about her body too ... Maybe those women are educating her._

He smirked as he got up, and stalked her into the kitchen, _Of course, there are **some** things that these Chikyuujin can't warn Kakarotto about – namely me, a full-grown male._

"Hey, Vegeta, did you want anything special for the picnic today?" She asked while bent over and searching through the refrigerator. Smirking, he silently walked closer, eyeing the pure muscle of her arms and almost bare back which rippled, and shone in the dim, flickering florescent lights. "Maybe I can make you some burgers from some deer - that's always really good." He hovered behind her, licking his chops. "Ooh! I still got some left over!" - she turned around - "You'll like - uh ... Yes?"

"I'm sure," he said, leaning toward her a bit further, "that anything you make will be delicious."

She smiled nervously, "So ... deer burgers it is then ... I'll have a batch made just for you, okay? I'll ..." she began to slowly trail off when he brushed his lips over her forehead, and over her hair, "set some ... aside for you ..."

--

Vegeta scowled at the women and men gathered at the picnic table in Kakarotto's backyard, wishing them away in his head, but having no such luck in reality.

He chewed almost laboriously on his burgers. Not that they were tough or that he disliked them in anyway. The meat within was tender and juicy - he would have to have Kakarotto make him some more later - but he just could not enjoy them as well as he would have liked.

Those smiles were bothering him. _Everyone_ was smiling. _Kakarotto_ was smiling ... at everyone. Couldn't they all be struck by lightning, hit by a wayward asteroid, or just ...

_Keel over and die already!_ His mind raged, _How dare they interrupt Kakarotto and I!_

He had kissed her again - attempted to relieve some pent up emotions with the kiss, but as fate would have it, barely minute into the embrace, he had felt the energies of her friends fast approaching. Thoroughly disgusted, Vegeta had torn himself away, and left Kakarotto softly gasping - though he did feel some pride surge from hearing that – no matter how faint.

A cracking sound broke through the air, and he looked down into his hands to see that he had broken the plate in his hand which used to hold the deer burgers. One of the shards of the plate was embedded deeply into the palm of his hand, so he dropped the rest of the plate onto the ground - seeing as he was sitting against a near by tree - and slowly began to extract it.

"Vegeta-kun!" Jerking his head up in surprise, he watched Kakarotto run over, "Don't do that, Vegeta-kun!"

"Then how do you think it's supposed to heal?" He asked, and, ignoring the logic that said it was better to do otherwise, tore the shard out of his hand.

She grimaced before running into the house. Grunting in annoyance, Vegeta stood up, and started to walk after her, but then she ran back out with some white box in her hand. Her other hand forced him to sit down in one of the chairs that she had out, and then opened the box on his lap, sorting through what looked like little rolls of that toilet paper in the bathroom. Kakarotto then grabbed his hand, trying to turn it around so that she could inspect it, and Vegeta had had enough.

"Damn it, Kakarotto, it's just fine! Just leave it alone, and it'll heal on its own!" When he tried to yank his hand back, she only clamped on tighter, and ... _scowled_ at him.

"Vegeta, I'm going to clean your hand, and wrap it up if you would only stop being such a big baby for three seconds."

He sputtered, "'Big baby?' _Me_? Give me my hand back!"

"No. Now hold still." She had pulled the top of some bottle off with her teeth - it had 'HYDROGEN' and then a long word on it that Vegeta didn't know the meaning of - and then she dabbed some dark liquid onto his palm.

It stung like hell.

"_Fuck_, Kakarotto! Are you trying to kill me?"

"It's just hydrogen peroxide," she said, laughing at him, and then applied more - _still_ laughing.

Grinding his fangs, he snarled, "Stop it!"

Thankfully, she did stop, but then she unraveled the stuff that looked like miniature toilet paper rolls. Holding back another sneer, Vegeta allowed her to wrap it around his palm and tape it down.

"There! You happy now?" Vegeta stood up, the box falling on the ground in a heap - the things inside rolling across the ground, and stomped upon by the irate Saiyajin as he stormed toward the house.

--

"They're not coming over tomorrow," she whispered to him later that same day.

The others had long since left, but Vegeta had gone straight to bed. To him, bed was the futon that Kakarotto had gotten for him a few days after living with her. There was no room for it except for in the kitchen and in her room, so he was basically stuck sleeping on her floor, shoving it under her bed during the daytime hours.

So they were laying in her room in the dark, and after she had whispered to him, Vegeta said, "Good."

"Vegeta?"

He sighed, "... What, Kakarotto?"

"I'm sorry if I made you mad."

"... I'm not mad, Kakarotto."

"Really?" Vegeta heard her bed springs creak as she shifted.

"Yeah."

The next thing she said stunned Vegeta for all of a few seconds, "Want to come up here to sleep tonight? I know how you don't like the futon."

Crawling into the bed, and feeling around blindly in the dark, Vegeta settled down beside her. Throwing caution to the wind, he enveloped her into his arms, securing her against his chest. He felt her chest move as she sighed deeply. He closed his eyes, and felt a little bit better.

"Vegeta ...?"

He grunted, "What now?"

"Why did you kiss me again today?"

Shifting to make her face him, he asked, "Why? Did you want another kiss?"

"Maybe ... Was it that instincts thing again?"

"Yes."

"Can I kiss you?"

"... Yes."

And she kissed him. Gentle at first, and then Vegeta deepened it, parting her lips with his tongue to drag it over hers. He felt her shiver, and heard her soft moan when he stroked just above her tail.

"Vegeta," she gasped after he broke the kiss - his hand wrapped gently around the base of her tail.

"Yes?"

"What are you ...? Why does it ...?"

Chuckling, he said, "Feels good, doesn't it? I can make you feel even better."

Kakarotto didn't answer him for a while, so he gently squeezed her tail causing her to take a sharp intake of air, and then she moaned out low, "Ah ..."

"Imagine that," he murmured into her ear, "tenfold. Yes or no?"

"... Yes," she said.

Letting a smirk come over his features, Vegeta planted his lips on hers, scraping his fingernails through the fur of her tail. The slighter frame arched against him, and he felt his veins sing. The thrill built up in his body, taking over his mind as he fondled her tail. Every little gasp she made into his mouth only served to excite him further, and he soon ripped all articles of clothing between them so that he could wallow in the smooth finish of her sleek body.

Kakarotto's eyes would sometimes roll back into her head, and take deep breaths that would turn into soft moans. His mouth, lips, and tongue went wherever he could reach, searching and discovering small secrets - those hidden just behind her ear, and that dimple of her collarbone. Groaning softly himself, Vegeta pressed tighter to her skin, wanting to merge indefinitely.

More stirring moans came forth when he caressed lower, feeling out new plots, and sometimes tickling that little spot beneath her breast - heard her little, soft giggles and cries ...

Next came his name on her tongue, and oftentimes, he would stop the ministrations briefly to listen. Relishing in the reactions, Vegeta found his lips engulfing a taut nipple, his mouth filling with a rich taste. Pleased with the snack for his stomach - and that of his ears - he searched even lower for another sweet treat.

He was not disappointed.

A quick thrust into wetness, and ... everything was _perfectly_ hazy afterward.

--

Vegeta grunted when she poked at his shoulder, "Time to wake up, sleepyhead."

"That always gives me disturbing images of disembodied heads floating around. So stop saying that."

Gokuu giggled, and kissed his cheek, "Fine, Vegeta-kun. No sleepyheads for you."

"Good ..." His eyes peeked open. "You kissed me ..."

She pouted - a bit uncertain then, "You were kissing me a lot last night ... in all sorts of places."

"... Did you like it?"

Relaxing, she smiled brightly, "Yeah! That was ... It was ..." Gokuu laughed, "It was nice ... but not _just_ nice - it was ..."

"I get it, Kakarotto," he said, and then yawned widely, sitting up, and reaching upwards as he stretched his arms. After that, he slumped back into the bed, his charcoal eyes examining her naked body. "... Want to do it again?"

"Now?"

"_Now_," he insisted.

"Can we be Super Saiyajin?"

With a flash of golden light, he drilled blue eyes into her black eyes, "We can be slugs, and I'd still want to do it, Kakarotto. Now come here!"


	9. My Heart Will Go On

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Nine: My Heart Will Go On

--

Gokuu's eyes fluttered open, and she smiled up at the sky above, but, inside of her, she knew that there was something wrong – especially since the sky was red, and she didn't remember ordering her lips to smile.

Try as she could, she was unable to get up to look around better. In fact, even her eyes refused to obey her, focusing on random, small wisps of white clouds in the red sky.

Suddenly, she heard someone laugh, but her head didn't turn to look at who had done so, and the voice which had laughed had sounded strangely familiar. The voice asked, "Yuana ko'rom?"

Though she couldn't understand the words, she then recognized the voice. It was that of Vegeta's deep rasping throat. Her voice - not of her own volition - seemed to answer back, "Lu'ko'fo, Vegeta."

He didn't say anything for a while, but then he asked, "Yeput?"

Her body rolled onto its stomach, and she felt her face bury itself into her arms, shoulders shaking. Was that terror that Gokuu could feel somewhere in the pit of her belly? "Bukri goutso'ro'gat esbeha kuv!"

Gokuu wanted her jaw to drop, feeling something entirely different from fear, but, once again, nothing happened, and she remained softly crying there into the desert ground. A warm hand touched her back, and her arms went around the man's torso, clutching him tightly. She was lifted into strong arms, and her eyes opened to gaze up at the calm face of Vegeta. His skin was darker, but Gokuu could tell that it was him - even though she had never seen him look so peaceful before.

His hand stroked her lower stomach, and her attention shifted back to what she had felt there before ... what was felt _within_ her ...

"Ruv ..." he said, and then he whispered it against her lips, "Kakarotto ruv. Aen livas ruv."

Tears rolled down her cheeks, "Livas'or kuv. Lispi'lor frak, Vegeta."

"... Yuana?"

Two energy signals resided deep in her lower abdomen, and his hand clutched there momentarily. Gokuu could see in his eyes flickers of surprise, fear, and desperation. However, what could Vegeta ever fear? Were they talking about the energy signals inside of her? What was the word that Bulma had given that? Pregnancy ... and two children meant twins.

_I'm pregnant?_ Without her consent - yet it was almost as if the body she was in had heard her, and thus did the only thing that could answer her question - her eyes looked down at her belly.

Even through the tears she didn't know why she was shedding, Son Gokuu was able to see that her stomach was a bit larger than she last remembered - more rounded - and she could see her ab muscles atop the strange mound that was her stomach.

"Kakarotto," she looked up at him, and he kissed her lips. Gokuu never thought that kisses could be soft. Especially kisses that came from Vegeta. "... Ko-"

"Buk! Bukki hasne'ko!"

"Yeput? Kora! Kora, Kakarotto! ... Koro ..."

She slapped him, "Vegeta, bukki seko! Ko resa!"

He sighed softly, and murmured, "Kora ..."

"Bukki ko'fo, Vegeta ... Saiya'yat kreg'po Vegeta puvel."

Vegeta's face leaned in closer to hers, and her eyes closed, feeling his breath against her cheek, "Ro kuv, Kakarotto. Bukki ro puvel."

"Bupi gat'po lu'ko-"

"Lu'rel'io, Kakarotto."

She felt her body begin to shake. Was it because of those words that she was unable to understand?

"Vegeta," she said, "lu'ko'fo ..." From the strange tone in her own voice, Gokuu thought that she might have understood what that meant, but he didn't do as she seemed to be telling him, and Vegeta held her tighter.

"Buk, bukri gat'ro-"

"Vegeta! Ko'fo!"

_Go ... is that what I'm saying? Why do I want you to leave me, Vegeta? What's going on? Tell me in a way so that I can understand!_

The image of Vegeta began to fade away along with her desert surroundings and red skies. Everything was suddenly gone ...

--

Sitting up in bed, she called out, "No, wait!"

Vegeta jerked awake beside her, and growled in annoyance, "Damn it, Kakarotto. What are you doing?"

"I ..." she looked around in confusion, "I don't know ... I had a weird dream. The sky was red, and you were talking funny words, and I couldn't move - well, I could move, but _I_ wasn't making myself do the moving. I ..."

"Planet Vegeta," he yawned, and then laid back down, grumbling into one of the pillows. "Stupid girl doesn't even know when she's dreaming of her home world ..."

"And I was pregnant - with twins."

He sat up, "What?"

She smiled slightly when she caught his attention, but then it vanished, "But I don't think that you and me were very happy about it ... You kept touching my stomach, and we sounded so sad." Gokuu looked over at him, asking with her eyes about that which she could not seem to voice.

"It was just a dream, Kakarotto ... Nothing more. Don't think too much on it."

Frowning softly when he laid back down, she straddled his thighs, "Don't you want a baby with me?"

Sputtering indignantly, he tried shoving her off, "What are you talking about? I don't remember agreeing to such terms!"

She grabbed his wrists, "But you come into bed with me almost every night now, and turn off the lights ... Bulma-chan told me that what you do to me can make babies." Her eyebrows lifted to implore of him, "I thought that you wanted to make one with me, Vegeta, since we do it so often."

"Well ... Kakarotto, it was just a stupid dream. Don't start getting any ideas because of it! I come into your bed because I want to touch you" - he smirked - "and I know that you like it when I do. So what now? Do you want me to stop?"

"No," she said quickly, feeling more than a bit bewildered – because of his words and her own automatic reaction.

"Good." He sighed, and relaxed back into the bed, rolling his shoulders, "Now get some sleep."

"... Vegeta? What if I can't stop thinking about it?" He groaned, covering his eyes as she went on, "You kissed me real soft, and held me tight ... but I don't get it. We were doing all of those things, and it felt nice, but I was crying, and you were sad."

"Fine, tell me what happened."

"Just that, I think. You came over, then I cried, and you picked me up, and held me for the rest of the time ... Oh, and I slapped you."

He lifted his hands from his black eyes, "What? Why?"

Shrugging, she said, "I don't know. I think it was something you said. Ko ... Kora or something ... Koro ..."

He froze under her, and Gokuu bit her lip softly when Vegeta said, "I would never say those things."

She swallowed nothing, "They were just nonsense words - of course, you wouldn't ever say them."

"I mean it," he whispered, "I'll never say those things to you. Ever."

--

Vegeta the Tall scowled through the seeing orb and across the dimensions at the pair lying in bed. Somewhere behind him, the other Saiyajin were standing around the small boy - the only exception being Addict seeing as he was unable to stand. Vegeta the Romantic poked at the boy's cheek in slight confusion, the whole assemblage rather quiet and confused.

After a moment, Vegeta the Elder - so called for possessing the oldest age at death for a Saiyajin King - snapped, "You all said he spoke! That means he can't be a descendant. Even if he was Proud's kid, you must've all heard the wind or something. 'Those that wait for life are always silent.'"

"'Unless their circumstances are dire,'" Romantic said softly, starting to become a bit nervous now that it seemed that they were all stupid - hasty to have believed that this scrawny child belonged to their great bloodline. It most certainly wouldn't make his, Addict's, Tall's, and the Terror Twin's afterlives any better.

For Romantic, it wasn't that hard to gain some little small bits of approval from the other kings - besides, all healthy Saiyajin males liked the thought of their own harem. Of course, Romantic had married his harem ... however, Addict's case was almost as bad as Tall's doings. Permanently disabling himself through the use of a potent drug, Addict still was unable to move even in death, and there in the afterlife of the once great Saiyajin Empire, he was avoided like a particularly nasty plague. This small ordeal had the potential of worsening the conditions for all of them.

Muscle and Brain of the Terror Twins seemed to be a rung or two below Addict, but Romantic wasn't entirely sure on the details. From what Romantic had gathered about the two, they were the very first kings to rule over Saiyajin ... ever.

That might have struck a better chord with other civilizations; however, Romantic remembered that they were always spoken of in quiet voices when he was still alive – quiet, disturbed voices.

Whatever had happened when Muscle and Brain had been alive must have been bad.

However, sometime before Planet Vegeta had met its end, Romantic had come to discover that the Saiyajin of that time didn't view the two in such a derogatory fashion. Time had a way of skewering the facts ...

The boy was currently gazing emotionlessly at those around him, and when Romantic's finger pulled back after the poke, the kid glanced back over his shoulder at Tall. And Tall either was unaware of his glare or was ignoring it entirely.

Elder sighed, "Well, this has been a waste of my time."

"What the hell are you going to do?" Addict asked. "You're _dead_."

"I suggest that you keep out of my business, _Father_."

"No," he said, "I'm curious. Are you so hooked onto the way that you lived in life that you can't stop using such idiotic idioms?"

Not that Addict would let the fact that he was hated – even by his own son – bring him down. Rather, for them as Saiyajin, it was sometimes humorous and bloody.

"Shut up," Brain said.

"Why don't you all just go to limbo? Your kind isn't needed." Spittle danced from Elder's mouth as he raged, "In fact, all you people seem to do is blight upon our greatness! Go to limbo and relive your deaths! It's the very least you could do for the true Saiyajin."

Brain nodded to Muscle, and the larger twin grabbed Elder's head with one hand, lifting him up into the air. After a tense moment, Brain continued, "As I was saying ... shut the hell up. You're giving me a headache."

The boy suddenly smirked, looking up at Vegeta the Elder, "... Can I take a shot at him?"

Eyes widening in shock, Elder shouted, "Those that wait for life stay silent! They have always stayed silent! Now I know! You're just some young upstart causing a ruckus."

"If that's how you want to see it ..." he said before grabbing Elder's tail, and yanking hard.

--

Afterwards, when the other kings of the Saiyajin had left, the boy sat down on the ground, leaning back against a rock cropping.

Eventually, the old kings that had stayed behind quieted down - their voices disappearing, but not their proud smiles. It seemed that they finally accepted him as one of their descendents – and so did those that had just run away only moments before. A bit subdued feeling as night crept over the sky, the boy turned up his head, watching a comet drift through the stars. Everything was going just fine.

He had felt his parents a bit earlier - before they had fallen asleep - and he knew them to be steadily on their way to creating him. If everything kept on in this way, he knew that he would be born in no time at all. He just had to be patient a bit longer ...

His eyes snapped open, and he leapt to his feet, using his eyes to scan the horizon. Just then, he had felt a huge spike in energy - like an ocean wave, or the great wave of a tsunami. It rose up, and crashed down, followed by even more terrible waves of power. There was something out there.

Never feeling the like before, the boy started walking slowly toward the source, espying that on the distant horizon where he was heading was a dark amber blot of light against the red sky. And it was not the sun.

"I wonder what got him fired up," the boy heard one of the kings say.

"Who?" Romantic asked, and then he said after a moment, "Oh ... Yeah, him. Who _ever_ knows? I heard that the Legendary stopped talking to people when he died. Hard to tell what's on his mind when you got nothing to go on. Maybe he found something to destroy."

Muscle laughed, "Must be where I got my love for destroying things."

The boy lowered his head first, and then lifted it back up to return to his reclined spot against the tree. He didn't bother to tell them that the Legendary was doing nothing but standing in one spot. Standing in just one place, and charging his energy for all he was worth. Though he knew not what death really meant, the boy could tell that it wasn't entirely the end of all things.


	10. Freakish

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Ten: Freakish

--

Kuririn knocked on the door first, smiling up at the sky, and noting that it was a lovely day out - the perfect day to take Gokuu out of her house and away from Vegeta. He attempted to relax when he heard someone begin to walk over to the front door. However, feeling that the energy belonged to that of a certain prince, Kuririn grimaced slightly when the door opened.

Vegeta raised an eyebrow at him, looking him over, "... You didn't call. What's this all about?"

"I thought I'd surprise her," he said in his defense.

Scowling, Vegeta stepped closer, "You know, I could just scare you off right now, then Kakarotto would never know that you tried to pay her a visit."

"... Hi, Gokuu!" Kuririn quickly called into the house, "Vegeta was just letting me in!"

The young woman peeked her head into the front hallway, and smiled, "Kuririn-kun! I didn't know you were coming over!"

He heard Vegeta snarl "I _hate_ you" as he walked past the Saiyajin, and into the house, going over to take her hand in greeting.

"I thought you might like a little surprise, so I'm taking you out to go see a movie."

"Really?" Her face brightened, and she came closer to kiss the top of his head, "That's so nice of you."

He smiled until Vegeta suddenly took her wrist, pulling her close. His lips planted themselves firmly on Gokuu's, and Kuririn's heart skipped a few beats when the girl seemed to reciprocate gladly.

After the kiss, she blinked up at him, "Now?"

Glancing over at his stunned face, Vegeta chuckled darkly, "No, but maybe when you get back from this silly movie."

Said face broke down, "Gokuu! What's going on here? I thought ..." she looked at him with that classic clueless expression, "Gokuu-chan ..." he tried to keep as calm of a visage as he could, considering the circumstance, "Why him? Of all people, why'd it have to be Vegeta? I thought he was our enemy."

Her shoulders were stiffening slowly, and, when he got his word in, she said, "He's not an enemy to me, and you shouldn't think of him as one either."

"He tried to destroy Chikyuu! I'm your friend, Gokuu-chan, and friends tell friends when they're doing something that could hurt themselves. I'm worried about what he could do to you."

At that, the confusion returned to her face, her conviction dying, "He doesn't hurt me, Kuririn."

Blocking out the thought of what exactly Vegeta _did_ do to her in the hours of the night, he said, "But he could."

"But I don't," Vegeta put in, taking her shoulders into both hands, and talking to Kuririn from behind her. He whispered into her ear, "Do I?"

Gokuu looked back and forth between the two before looking down at Kuririn, "You are my friend, Kuririn-kun. One of my best friends." She smiled slightly - a little secretly, "But I need to talk to Vegeta-kun. Come back in about an hour, and then I'll go see a movie with you."

--

Vegeta grunted, eyeing her, "You got rid of him. Why?"

"I told you," she said calmly – though she certainly didn't feel it - "I want to talk to you about something."

"You're not going to get all weepy on me, are you?"

"No," Gokuu said, and tried at smooth, controlled movements, sitting down on the sofa slowly, "I've just been thinking ..."

The other Saiyajin began to laugh aloud, "Oh! You _think_? Really?"

Letting herself say nothing and allowing Vegeta to use up all of his laughter, Gokuu smiled tremulously when Vegeta stopped laughing to stare uncomfortably at her odd state, "Yeah."

"... All right, Kakarotto. What's on your mind?"

"Do you remember when you died the first time?"

With a grimace, he said, "Almost as if it were yesterday. It's hard to forget shame like that."

"I thought you were beautiful then."

He stiffened, "What is this? Some kind of joke?"

"No," she said quietly, and his mouth snapped shut.

"You're in one of your moods again."

"'Again?'" Her back straightened, "I've been thinking about this for two whole years!" Watching as he tensed up further, Gokuu kept on, "You were powerful when I first met you. I think we could have fought all day and night ... and I would have been okay with that." His lips pursed, and eyebrows became more downward turned than usual, making Gokuu think that she might have said too much too soon, but she kept talking, "I don't know what you were thinking, but I don't think that you felt the thrill I did. I never dreamed I would ever fight someone with so much power."

Vegeta interrupted, "I don't want to listen to this."

"Why not?" She asked, "Scared?"

"No!" He growled, "I just don't feel like listening to you babble."

"It's okay, Vegeta," she tried to soothe, half rising off of the sofa. "We can talk about it later if-"

"No," Vegeta insisted, and he turned on his heels, disappearing into the hallway.

Gokuu chased after, "You were beautiful, Vegeta! It must've been hard for you to let yourself cry, but I don't see it as a bad thing like you."

When he stopped to turn around in the hall, she stopped, but was then shoved against the wall by one of his hands, "Just shut up."

"I figured something out then. Do you want to know what?"

"I thought I told you to shut up, Kakarotto!"

She grasped his wrist, feeling his shaking, corded muscles within, "You're not such a bad guy."

Snarling, the man shoved her back harder into the wall, and she heard something in the wall creak from the pressure, "I'm your worst nightmare, Kakarotto! The Prince of Saiyajin! I should kill you for such insolence!"

"No," and she smiled even with herself so vulnerable and open with him. She felt a little better with him being flustered, "You just told me and Kuririn that you won't hurt me."

He froze before he gritted through his fangs, "I never said that. I said that I don't right now. I never said that I wouldn't."

"It's okay," Gokuu whispered, and she gave his arm a little pat. "You can act tough, and macho all you want."

"I'm not acting, damn it!"

"One more thing."

"No! Now I _know_ that I don't want to hear anything that comes from your mouth!"

Stomach sinking, Gokuu said, "But I'm serious about this ... I don't think I've ever been more serious in my whole life, Vegeta. I want you to just think about it."

"... Fine," he finally released his hold on her. "I'll think about it. Just tell me already so I can ignore it after 'thinking' about it."

Now that she was about to ask him, she felt her tongue dry in her mouth. New to the emotions coursing through her, she suddenly couldn't quite put her words into being – especially due to Vegeta's callous outburst.

Wanting to disappear back into the wall, Gokuu dropped her eyes – averting them away from those of Vegeta's which bored back through her skull and into said wall – and she stared at hers and his feet. They were very interesting.

Bulma had informed Gokuu about the making of love, and what that might produce. Upon telling Bulma and Chichi what she had done with Vegeta some few weeks before, they had been surprised, delighted, and then angry. They scolded her for not waiting for marriage – whatever that was – but they didn't stay very mad long, and supplied her with what they called birth control ... whatever that was. Vegeta had just tossed it all away, saying that the birth control would just get in the way.

Something about just skipping temperatures or heat ...

Whatever _that_ was.

What Gokuu wanted ... she was told that it might take some time to accomplish it. Also, she was unsure whether Vegeta would bother to take the time to do it for her. Not that he had _not_ done something similar to it for her whenever she had wanted it, but there was still that little bit of doubt, a twisting knot in the bottom of her gut.

"Kakarotto, are you going to tell me or not?"

She lifted her eyes a fraction, tracing them over the rise and fall of his ribbed abs, and taking in the beauty of all his power packed into them. She put her hand flat against him there, and splayed her fingers out to dip them between in the valleys of his stomach. Vegeta's stomach had twitched from the intimate act before he relaxed, but he still appeared confused as to why Gokuu was touching him. Her hands traipsed the hard planes, causing Vegeta to raise an eyebrow, but Gokuu could hear as his breath began to quicken.

"Kakarotto, what-?"

Throwing her arms around him, she swallowed his words with a kiss, but it was not one that was quick and demanding. Son Gokuu had figured out in a very short amount of time after that odd dream how to kiss sweet and gently.

The larger Saiyajin, however, pressed her back into the wall, and whispered to her shocked lips, "Silly Kakarotto, you don't have to ask me for _that_."

"No," she shook her head, "I mean 'yes' kind of, but it's not ..."

"'It's not' what? It didn't change last time I checked."

Shifting uneasily, she said, "I want you to do it all the way this time, Vegeta."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Unable to voice her need, Gokuu kissed him again - harder than the last time - and let him guide her body onto the floor. He murmured into her lips, "Just tell me what you want and when you want it."

After his words, Vegeta buried his face into the crook of her neck - his hot mouth finding all of the little places that excited her.

It had to have been hours later, but it was hard to tell time when Vegeta was touching her. Yet she knew that, in truth, it could not have been so long. Vegeta had just finished that great crescendo that always began to orchestrate inside of her, and she knew that he would soon pull out to leave a sticky mess on her floor instead of within her.

Thankful that she was not a mass of jello like he sometimes made her feel like – that seemed to be reserved for whenever he won in their sparring matches – Gokuu folded her legs around his waist tightly. He frowned softly when she did, panting softly, and groaning low when her legs stopped him from extracting himself.

"... Kakarotto, let me out."

"Why?"

He seemed to freeze, stunned, "... Kakaro - agh!"

Feeling him cease his motions within her, the female Saiyajin had tightened both her legs and insides around him. "No, this is what I want, Vegeta," he groaned softly before shutting his eyes in a quiet moment of bliss.

"... Just this once, Kakarotto," he said before moving again, and he appeared to sweat heavier, a drop splashing her shoulder.

Grasping at his back, she shook her head, saying, "Not just once ... until I'm pregnant."


	11. A Home

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Eleven: A Home

--

Vegeta cracked the joints of his fist slowly, looked back over his shoulder at Kakarotto when she turned into the house, and then cracked the knuckles of his other hand.

That night, he didn't feel like following her inside. She might ask him ... _that_ again, and he wasn't so sure how much longer he could go on not answering. Her advances on him had stunned Vegeta to a great degree. Ever since that last time - when Vegeta had ejaculated into her due to the fact that Kakarotto had tightened impossibly onto him - he hadn't sought out her flesh except for spars.

Kakarotto desired his seed in her - hoped for a child to be created from their union. Vegeta was flabbergasted by the whole thought of it. Sure, it would be powerful. Of course, it would have no equal. However, these thoughts of a possible brat sired from him could not appease him.

_I don't want to start a family!_ The woman was mad for even considering about thinking about _thinking_ about reproducing with him.

"Vegeta?" He didn't look up. "Vegeta, don't you want to come in? Dinner'll be ready soon."

"Then I'll be in when it's done! Just leave me alone now."

He felt her energy signal fluctuate slightly, and snorted at the fact that her emotions were having an affect on her energy. The silly girl should have never gotten so soft there on Chikyuu. A power like hers should have reflected her ferocity as a Saiyajin!

Vegeta thought to himself when Kakarotto called him in, _I'll never let myself become so weak._

When he entered, she smiled radiantly at him - _Stupid fool, I'm supposed to kill you, not ..._ – before serving him his meal. Biting in, he tried to find something wrong with it so he could bitch at her, to wipe that smile off of her face, however, his dinner was perfect like always. _Damn her._ Dessert was even better. An enormous mound of fudge and chocolate joined into some kind of heavenly union. She continued to give him that grin, and Vegeta was ready to just run away at that point.

Finally, he stood up, making Kakarotto jump, taken by surprise because of his abruptness, "You ..."

"Me?"

"Why can't you do something wrong for a change?"

"I ... did something wrong?"

"No," Vegeta slumped back into the chair, "and that's my problem."

_She's just too ... Kakarotto's ..._

"Oh ... you look tired, Vegeta-kun, I'll set up the bath for you."

"... You're too good to me."

Her head tilted to the side in her bewilderment, "I do try my best for you, Vegeta. You're my friend. I was hoping that you felt the same way." After he didn't respond to that, Kakarotto said, "I thought you put everything ... all of our battles behind us. And that was why you wanted to touch me like that."

"... You know, it feels good to me too. Did it ever occur to you that I did it for the sole purpose of pleasing myself?"

"I thought about that too, but you really could've just pleased yourself with my body. You might've gotten away with it - maybe I would've never known what it felt like to feel so special to you." Kakarotto got up to go to Vegeta's side, "If you hadn't made sure that I was comfortable and felt good, then I'd know you were doing it for yourself. But you decided to care enough about me so I could enjoy it with you."

He felt his chest heave and twinge uncomfortably, and he knew that something was happening, but he felt so powerless to stop it, "Maybe it's no fun fucking a dry girl. I mean ... damn you, Kakarotto, you're supposed to fear me!"

Her lips turned into a pout, "Why can't you forget about all of that?"

"Well, why can't _you_ forget about having a baby?" Vegeta slammed down on the table, and he thought that he heard something crack, but he ignored it.

He was too entranced by the heart-broken look which flashed over her face, "I guess ... now's ... not a good time?"

"There will never be a good enough time, Kakarotto." Stamping down on his sudden want to stop her shaking lip, he said, "Forget about getting pregnant ... forget about me."

"What do you mean? How can I forget about you? You live with me."

"Not anymore," he said without thinking.

Eyes widening, Kakarotto took his wrist before he could walk away, "What? Vegeta, what's the point in leaving? You have everything you could ever need here and more!" Her hand reached up – touched his cheek, "I thought this could be home for you ... that I could be home for you."

"Kakarotto-"

"Please don't go, Vegeta-kun," the Saiyajin female wrapped her arms around his, and held fast, "I think I need you."

_Damn it,_ he thought when he kissed her.

--

He felt the wind first, and then thought of how odd that was that there was wind in Kakarotto's home. But then again, he was no longer in her house ...

Opening, his eyes, he let himself search his surroundings. It took him a few moments to recognize the desert that he was in. He was standing at the edge of a red cliff which over looked the rest of the red landscape and cast a long, dark shadow over the plains. The Shin'Ai Deserts just southeast of the Royal Palace of Planet Vegeta.

_... Shin'Ai ... It means 'bloodshed' in my people's language, but ... it's so strange that in this Chikyuu language it means 'belief and love' ... Kakarotto ..._ "No! No! I need to forget about her!"

"Rol yend?"

His head jerked up sharply at the sound, and he blinked in shock at the image before him, "What the ...?"

"Rol yend?" Vegeta was looking at himself ... who was asking in his native tongue where he came from.

"Rol Chikyuu ..." he answered slowly, unsure as he was speaking in the language that he hadn't spoken in years.

The man nodded, and looked away from him, "Po seko nu nukir?"

_Is ... that woman there? ..._ "Seko?"

"Sdal," - _Yes,_ - "seko kuv." _Your woman ... Does he mean Kakarotto?_ "Seko ruv." _My woman?_

"Hey! Kakarotto bupi po kuv! Po seko ruv!" He grumbled as he hoped that he had gotten himself across to this strange Saiyajin who looked exactly like him.

However, he just grinned, "Kakarotto po puv." _Kakarotto is her own ...? What the hell does that mean?_

"Yuana?"

"Sveten'per karpa puv Vegeta sve?" _Did she give ... her body to you, Vegeta?_

"Sdal! Kreg'po Vegeta puv!" _... That sounds weird translated ... her Vegeta ... Kakarotto's Vegeta ... And she needs me ... No!_

The other man laughed lightly, "Aeid Kakarotto ruv kreg'per Vegeta puv." _My Kakarotto needed me - her Vegeta - too ..._

"... Va-?"

"Hasne'ko'fo Saiya'iap Ept."

_... The Legendary Saiyajin?_ "Yeput? Saiya'iap Ept po nika!" Vegeta smirked, hoping to see shock on his face.

The man just smirked in turn, "Vasno'ro vek po nika." _... I know that he's here ... but how'd he ...?_

"Yui?"

"Ro Ept." _Him? The Legendary?_

"Ko? Bukki ko Ept! Ro Saiya'iap Ept!"

He laughed at Vegeta! "Simpleton."

Vegeta gaped, "Yua ... What did you say?"

"You have such a one-track mind ... but I suppose that's my own fault."

"What are you talking about? Who the hell are you? And how do you know about Kakarotto?"

"Can't tell you yet, sorry ... I actually thought that you already knew the answer to who I was. You've seen me before."

He snorted in disdain, "If you're talking about my seeing you in a mirror, then you're right, I have. But nowhere else have I seen your face."

"... Oh, how soon we do forget. Oh, well."

"Wha-?" The other Saiyajin male shoved him over the side of the cliff ... and he couldn't find the strength to fly.

--

Vegeta groaned, and rubbed his head, sitting up slowly. Kakarotto stirred beside him, but did nothing else - for which he was glad because he didn't want to deal with her at the moment. Looking down at her, he brushed aside that one strand of hair that always found its way into her face, and then froze.

_Shit,_ he thought, _I didn't leave ... This is your fault, Kakarotto! You're why I can't leave! But I'm not yours, and you sure as hell don't belong to me!_

Kakarotto slept on - oblivious to him, and he watched her. The rise and fall of her chest slow and soothing, and Vegeta watched this carefully as he crawled out of the bed, trying not to think of it as his bed – their bed.

Searching for his clothes on the floor, and pulling them on, he tried not to see how peaceful she looked, but only tried to make sure that she still slept on as he found a bag to shove what little possessions that he owned into. Kakarotto never stirred again, but she smiled a ghost smile as his shadow fell over her slumbering face. It was no wonder that she was so happy and content. Just that night, her begging mouth and voice had charmed him into giving in - not once but twice - invading her warm womb with what he could.

_But it's all over now, Kakarotto._ He set the light bag down beside the bed, and raised his hands to her neck gently so as not to disturb her. Not yet. It wouldn't do if she were to awaken before he got a good hold on her neck.

He noticed absently that her neck was more slender looking with his large hands wrapped around it - delicate.

_I wish I could have killed you fair and square - in a battle above the clouds like your power demands - but you've given me no choice. No more of this hell ... I will no longer have to listen to your voice babbling on in the morning._

Vegeta's grip began to tighten. _I won't have to lose to you in spars anymore. That stupid grin of yours will no longer haunt me._ The smile that was still on her face didn't leave when he pressed in harder with his thumbs. _It ... will be gone ... like the rest of you. You'll no longer call me 'Vegeta-kun' ... I won't have to think about you ever again. You'll be the past. And whoever cares about the past?_

The Saiyajin Prince didn't, and he proved it as he watched the color slowly fade from her cheeks.

"There's no victory in this tonight," he murmured aloud. "This place that you love so much. It'll be left alone for you, Kakarotto. I'll leave this place ... I'll leave you here, and you can ... just die ..." _No more of your bright, shining smiles for me in the morning. Your voice whispering in my ear at night ..._

**_Her hand reached up – touched his cheek, "I thought this could be home for you ... that I could be home for you."_**

"... Damn you," Vegeta released her neck, picked up his bag, and left the room.


	12. Super Human

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Twelve:  
Super Human

--

Vegeta set the small bag of clothes on the floor of the ship. Taking a quick look at all of the controls, he deemed that it would be amazingly simple to operate, especially seeing as it appeared to be based off of Kakarotto's older spacepod.

**... Kakarotto,** he thought, I'm going now, but ... but I want you to know something. This is not spite or malice. Maybe I just need to think, or I really will be gone for good. I can't find it in me to hate you anymore. I just need to think. I need to know why that is. Why I ... I don't hate you, Kakarotto ... Kora ..

He turned on the ship after a moment, pointing it toward the sky.

--

Gokuu slid out of bed slowly, feeling the effects of the long night before, but it was a nice sensation, and warm. She padded out of the room, but stopped short. Her clothes were on the floor where Vegeta had tossed them away, but not his.

Frowning softly, she picked her clothes up, and tossed them into the dirty clothes basket. It was odd for Vegeta to do it himself, but whenever he did, he usually picked up her clothes too. Perhaps, he had no clean clothes to wear for the day, so he put them on ... She checked through the dirty clothes hamper only to find that he hadn't put them in.

For a moment, she smiled slightly, thinking of how she could tease him for wearing the same clothes for a second day in a row, however, Son Gokuu took note of another strange fact. The only clothes in the hamper were her own, and she was certain that she had put his clothes in it with hers.

Biting down on her bottom lip, she found her robe, and put it on before going slowly through the hallways. Senses stretched out, Gokuu searched for Vegeta's energy, coming up empty no matter how far she reached out for him.

She took a moment to fret silently, looking around the otherwise empty house - just in case - a few times.

Fighting away all of the nervous shakings from her body, Gokuu ran outside, and looked out there, and very likely would have continued to search if the phone hadn't rang.

_Vegeta! Please be you. Please be you ..._ Gokuu answered it quickly, "Hello?"

"Son-chan!" Bulma's voice exclaimed, "I've been trying to get a hold of you for hours. You sleep like a log!"

"Bulma," she said, "where's Vegeta?"

She listened to the other woman sigh on the other end, "Already noticed, huh?"

"Bulma, please," Gokuu couldn't take away the desperation from her voice, too worried about Vegeta's wellbeing and whereabouts to even think about anything else.

"He woke us all up here at Capsule Corp. last night ..."

"Bulma ..."

"Did you and him have a fight?"

"No," she almost whimpered, "Bulma! Please tell me where he is!"

"He's gone. He left Chikyuu."

She leaned back against a wall, slowly sliding down it as her knees became weak, and she squeaked out, "He _left_? But how?"

"Remember that ship that my dad made for you to take you to Namek? Daddy was copying the same design, and everything. He's even making a second one right now to see if he can improve on it ... Vegeta took the one that my dad was finishing up on."

Gokuu shook her head even though Bulma couldn't see it - even though she knew there was no point in denying the fact that Vegeta had just abandoned her. "But we were ... he was going to – Bulma, we were going to make a baby together. Why would he ...?"

She said soothingly, "Gokuu-chan, it'll be all right. Why don't you come over here, okay? Clean up any tears you got ... because I got an idea."

"What is it?"

"Just get dressed or whatever you need to do. No need for _you_ to hurry since you can't do anything to help with it."

"... Okay, Bulma. I'll be over as soon as I can."

--

Vegeta woke up, and rolled over to reach for Kakarotto ...

And came up empty-handed.

With a sigh, he pushed himself up, sitting up, and stretching up to the gray ceiling. Bringing his hands back down, he stared at the one which had betrayed him only a few seconds ago. He tried not to hate it for not finding her lithe form to nuzzle into. Rising, he went up to the controls to check on his trajectory, and noticed that it was around the time that Kakarotto usually woke up.

Wiping his sweaty hands through his hair, the prince attempted to shove away all thoughts of her – all sweet memories which just made him want her more.

He frowned softly at the blip that appeared suddenly on the radar, trying to figure out how close to his vessel it was. The radar, however, was a bit more complicated than the rest of the ship to Vegeta, and he went to look out the portholes instead. Finally, he spotted a silver form becoming steadily larger, and his eyes narrowed, trying to determine who it was designed by.

After the ship came into better focus, he searched for any discerning marks upon it. _Mercenary. Maybe even smugglers or thieves undercover acting as merchants._ He scanned the ship for energies, finding a whole shipload of energy signatures with three that were more powerful than the rest of the lot.

Vegeta steered his clumsier vessel toward it - bored if not interested. Briefly he wondered if he could hail it from his own ship, but then he realized that he had nothing to say to anyone on the ship - no real reason to make contact with them. If it turned out that they _were_ thieves or some such thing, and they bugged him, Vegeta would take care of them quickly enough.

Maybe even take that ship or a smaller ship that might be docked within it. It wasn't like Vegeta couldn't be as nasty as them if it came to that.

He felt a bit better - more like himself when he thought of that - and then began to debate whether he should just attack them anyway to see what they had onboard. After all, Kakarotto and her goody-goody attitude was no longer around to give him a guilt trip like she most likely would attempt. Grinning a bit maliciously, Vegeta looked for a way to communicate with them.

However, they made contact with _him_. A video flickering to static life on a screen in front of him, but all it showed to Vegeta was a dark blob that should have been a head instead of a clear picture, "Prepare to be boarded. This is a ship under the command of the Saiyajin Empire, and as such, we are entitled-"

His eyes widened briefly before he snapped, "Then that ship is under my command. _You_ let _me_ aboard."

Whoever was on the other side didn't answer back for a while, and then - as if to the side to someone beside him - the voice said, "Uh, what do we do now?"

"Who is this?" A new voice demanded.

"Prince Vegeta," he said, "now let me on before the ship is a piece of _scrap metal_ under the command of the Saiyajin Empire."

--

Bulma gasped when she saw her, "Gokuu-chan, I thought you said you two didn't have a fight."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"There are hand marks around your neck!"

Raising her own hands to her neck, Gokuu went into the hallway, knowing there to be a mirror mounted on the wall, and looked into it. For indeed, there were two lavender hand marks that looked like someone had attempted to strangle her.

"He must have ... maybe he did it when I was sleeping."

She saw Bulma behind her paling in the mirror, "You mean Vegeta tried to kill you in your sleep?"

"But he didn't finish it, Bulma," she traced one of the light violet fingers marked on her neck. "He's just been upset ... that must be why he went away."

"... Are _you_ okay, Son-chan?"

Gokuu said softly, "I just need to find him, Bulma-chan. I want to talk to him. After that, I really don't know."

"Well, I'm behind you all the way. If you need _any_ help, don't be afraid to ask."

The Saiyajin smiled a bit, and then said, "Help me find Vegeta."

Bulma's lips curled up a bit sinisterly, "Don't worry, this war isn't over yet! Let me tell you about ... _the plan_."

Laughing nervously, Gokuu followed her when she beckoned her with her hand, walking down to the laboratory - the one that was connected to one of the newly installed hangar bays.

The other woman said to her conversationally, "Remember that second ship I was telling you about? Well, it's not done yet, but when Vegeta left, I thought it might come in handy, so I had our people start concentrating all of their efforts onto it. It should take a little over a month to finish building it entirely."

"Bulma ..." she looked back at her, and Gokuu smiled, "Thank you so much."

"It's nothing, hun ... why don't we talk a bit? You said on the phone that ... you and Vegeta are going to be parents?"

Gokuu's shoulders rolled uneasily, "That's what I was hoping. When I asked Vegeta to help me make a baby with me, he shut himself off for a few weeks. He wouldn't touch me like he used to - at least, not outside of sparring."

She laughed lightly, "A little frustrating, huh?"

"Very - he used to touch me every night ... and sometimes in the morning ... and in the bath - oh! And once after a long spar, and I was making us lunch, he-"

"I get the picture ... so no loving after all that you two used to do, and it's a big shock for your body?"

"Kind of," Gokuu's chest deflated. "I didn't get it. I thought that he'd jump at the chance to keep the Saiyajin race around another generation. Instead he blocked me out, and hardly ever touched me except for last night. I wanted him to stay around ... Vegeta was making me so happy, I thought that I would try to do the same for him."

"Big backfire, huh?"

"Worse," she said hoarsely. "We did it last night ... I thought that meant Vegeta was going to stay with me, but now he's gone."

Reaching out to her, Bulma patted her shoulder, "It'll be all right, Son-chan."

**... Vegeta, where are you? There's so much I need to ask you right now.**

--

Vegeta paused, feeling the strange presence in his mind, and he tried not to answer to it.

Paragus looked back at him, "Vegeta-sama? What's wrong?"

_Other than the impossible fact that you, your son, and that other odd Saiyajin are still alive? Oh, nothing. Just a halfway completed bond threatening to drive me insane._ "Nothing that concerns you, Paragus, now hurry up, and show me to a room."

"Of course, King Vegeta."

Scowling when Paragus turned his face away, Vegeta thought, _Technically, I am still just the Prince since I never got to kill my father as tradition should have allowed ... but I suppose tradition doesn't matter anymore now. In the lieu of the fact that there are no other Saiyajin other than us few five currently, what's right and what's wrong for us cannot be determined by what might have been best for us in the past. We can't be held down by what our ancestors want us to do. Tradition ... tradition doesn't matter now?_ He blinked a few times in confusion at his thoughts.

If the old rules of his father's empire no longer applied to who was left behind, then he didn't have to stay as some prince of a forgotten, dead race. His pride was obsolete – yet what was he without it? What else did he have to go on?

_My hatred ... but who do I hate? I don't hate Kakarotto, but I have no problem hating those stupid friends of hers ... They don't matter now though. I don't want to see them again. Even if I somehow managed to ..._

His eyes widened, _If Kakarotto is ... Gods! Who's going to take care of that idiot and my offspring?_

"Vegeta-sama," Paragus said, opening a door, and bowing, "since this is of such short notice, I hope you don't mind the accommodations."

"They're fine," he said without thinking - unsure if he was talking about the simple chambers or about Kakarotto and the imaginary infant growing in her womb in a way of attempting to assure himself.

_If you're pregnant, Kakarotto, you better take care of it! ... And of yourself ... stupid girl ..._

--

Watching Bulma jump from console to console to whatever other shining blinking thing was on the ship, Gokuu repressed her urge to just try the ship out without letting Bulma, her father, and their employees finish it. Though she knew that it might have been best for them to slowly and patiently piece it all together, they were hurrying for her.

Thus, she pushed out her worries for another day. Vegeta was out there in space, and not beside her. Who knew if she'd ever see him again?

She vaguely remembered hearing from Bulma and her father that outer space was a big place to get lost in - it sounded like some sort of jest, but Son Gokuu wasn't entirely certain about that. There truly was no telling what she was getting herself into. After all, she had absolutely no idea where Vegeta might have gone to. It wasn't like he sat down with her and told her all about his exploits and his favorite haunts. Maybe she would have to just simply ask for him by name planet-to-planet ...

"Gokuu-chan? You're back?" She looked up to see Bulma smiling at her, "Where'd you run off to before? You were gone for a long time."

"Just a surprise ..." She sighed, "How am I going to find him, Bulma?"

Cocking her head to the side, Bulma looked like she was waiting for more about why Gokuu had ran off, and then returned after being away for so long, "... Well, you _do_ have that Instant Transmission thing going for you, so if you sense him, you might be able to zap yourself or whatever to him. We also have a tracking device. It's too far away right now, but if you get close enough, you can follow the other ship."

"You have no idea what this means to me."

She smiled at Gokuu as she patted herself down before pulling out her pack of cigarettes and a lighter, "You just need to wait a couple more weeks. You'll see him again in no time."

**Gokuu ... Son Gokuu ...**

Blinking in astonishment due to the intrusion, Son Gokuu straightened up, "King Kai?"

"Huh? What's he want?"

**Gokuu, you need to come here at once. There's a grave situation at hand.**

"I'll be there in a moment, King Kai." A frown marred her features before she nodded to Bulma, "I have to go, okay? I'll be back as soon as I can." Raising two fingers to her forehead, she teleported beside King Kai after finding his energy signal, and nodded to him, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, Gokuu! The Instant Transmission technique from Yardrat, I see ..."

"Yeah," she said with a slight smile.

He frowned after a moment, "I never got to ask you what happened there on Planet Yardrat, did I ...?"

Beginning to stiffen, she asked, "Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Hm? Oh, no, no! I just got sidetracked for a second there. What I mean to say is much more pressing of a matter ... You remember the tale of the Legendary Super Saiyajin, don't you?"

Gokuu quieted. The last time that the Legendary had been mentioned to her was when she had been in the virtual reality game with Vegeta. "I suppose so. He likes bloodshed and battle and gore and all that stuff, and no one's supposed to be his match."

Listening to his grim words, Gokuu's chest began to feel a little more active, "The Legendary Super Saiyajin is loose in the South Quadrant. If he is allowed to continue this rampage, our galaxy is next on the list! Son Gokuu, you need to go to the South Galaxy to get rid of him for good."

"I can't."

"I knew I could count on you to do what's - what?"

Gokuu's face fell a bit, "Vegeta left Chikyuu. I need to find him."

"How can that possibly be more important than saving the entire universe?"

"Because _he's_ important to me. I'll take this legendary guy down as soon as I find Vegeta," she said, clutching her hands in front of her chest in a pleading gesture.

Groaning, he shook his head, "Gokuu, please, if you don't do this there won't _be_ a Vegeta to find! The Legendary has already devastated hundreds of worlds in the South Galaxy. A few more to go, and he'll come up here to destroy yours!"

She chewed worriedly on her lip before she relented, "I'm sorry, King Kai. I just haven't been thinking like myself for a while."

What lips that King Kai didn't possess were pursed in thought, "The Yardratjin, right? They're known for turning people inside out, Gokuu. I'm actually surprised that they managed to do it to you."

"They're good people, but they kept showing ... a fault in me. I didn't quite get it until after I got home," she told him. "When Bulma finishes up that ship, I'll start looking for this Legendary guy right away."

"Why bother," King Kai began to chuckle, dropping his head down as if to contain the laughter better, "when you can Instant Transmission to him from here?"

"... Oh, yeah."

--

"My lord?" There came a knock at Vegeta's door, and he recognized it as Turles' voice.

"What is it?"

He answered, "I found something a while ago that you might enjoy."

Pausing momentarily - because he didn't like looking at Turles for any amount of time - Vegeta opened the door to peek his head out, "What is it already?"

The other Saiyajin put an old book in Vegeta's vision range, and he raised his left eyebrow at him questioningly before taking it. Turles said, "It's amazing what you can find if you look hard enough."

He read the script on the cover aloud, "'Lifk'omir Ept' ... Breathing Legends?"

"I know you were probably too young to remember, but it's supposed to hold quite a few Saiyajin prophesies. A few myths ... even some things on the Legendary himself."

Nodding after a while, Vegeta stepped back into the room, "... It's probably all that's left of us."

"Probably," he laughed bitterly. "I'll be seeing you, Vegeta-sama." He disappeared into the hallway, and Vegeta shut the door, opting not to answer.

Sitting down with the book in hand, he flipped it open to a random page, and translated what he could of his old language.

_'... and the light of the sky shall descend and destroy all. As our Lord has forseen, so shall it be.'_

That being the end of a passage, Vegeta turned back a few pages to find out what that was about. He found the beginning.

_'Those of the past will meet again in the future. These eight shall bring down hardship on themselves to the lesser good of their race.  
'The first leaving behind family life.  
'The second leaving behind jealousy.  
'The third leaving behind thoughts of deception.  
'The fourth leaving behind the duty of kinship.  
'The fifth leaving behind respect.  
'The sixth leaving behind all vestiges of morality.  
'The seventh leaving behind hatred of one's own race.  
'The eighth leaving behind everything for pursuit of the seventh.'_

He reread the last line a couple more times - a bit disturbed by it. That had to have been the closest thing to a declaration of love that he had ever heard about for something in a Saiyajin text. _Other than the Saiyajin of the Hin'I region anyway._

A grimace came to his lips with that thought - the memory that he looked like said Saiyajin was disconcerting for Vegeta - and he tried to block that out.

Glancing up at the sole mirror in his room, Vegeta's lips twisted further, attempting to distort his face enough that he didn't look like himself. The childish trick did not work, naturally, and so he continued to glower at his visage. The face that he saw continuously in the mirror was one that he hated ...

_**"-You've seen me before."**_

_**He snorted in disdain, "If you're talking about my seeing you in a mirror, then you're right, I have. But nowhere else have I seen your face."**_

Vegeta's jaw dropped.

--

Son Gokuu walked through the wreckage as she waited patiently for the Legendary's energy signal to come back to life.

He would disappear and reappear on strange occasions or on even more bizarre planets. As soon as she reached him, he'd be gone, the girl seeing neither hide nor tail. Oftentimes, Gokuu would have to wait out on the planet that she had teleported to for a few days before she felt his energy again. It was starting to take a toll on her, and she didn't know how far she was from Chikyuu - or even whether where Chikyuu was!

Never mind where she herself was located.

Frustrated was no way to elaborate on her current psyche.

Also, the barren and razed cities which met her gaze upon following his energy around were starting to get to her. Once she had seen a small town of aliens - they weren't in a big heap in the middle of the town, or even in a fallen position where they died.

Rather, the _pieces_ of them were strewn over the dirt roads, the mud brick walls, and over the thatched roofs. If she ever had an urge to take a stroll in Hell, she knew where to go then.

She knew that she would break down and cry if she saw such a spectacle again before she found the Legendary Super Saiyajin. For their deaths, Gokuu had to kill him to make him pay – to make him stop. However, she wasn't sure if she could go through with killing someone else.

Gokuu had only killed Freeza due to the fact that he already used up his second chance. There was no third chance from Son Gokuu.

However, even though she knew that Freeza deserved it - that this Legendary Super Saiyajin might deserve it - she could not rid her heart and mind of the knowledge that she had killed, and would have to kill again if it meant the safety of the universe. She only wished that it didn't have to be that way anymore.

--

Watching the blood slide down the back of his hands - the blood which poured from the ragged cuts on his knuckles and fingers – Vegeta sensed Paragus and his son, Brolli, heading down his hallway. Paragus and his son were both weaklings compared to him. Actually, all three of them were; they _and_ Turles were nothing against his might and strength, but they were much stronger than the aliens that inhabited the rest of the ship.

He knew that there were much stronger races out there, and he pondered over the reasoning for them to pick out the creatures that they had. _Loyal to a fault, and stupid. A good mix for grunts._

Yet, Vegeta knew that for an empire, they would have to do better than grunts. For an empire - no, for the Saiyajin Empire, they needed to find stronger aliens, and powerful allies to take over what was once rightfully theirs. The pitiful grunts would not do, and Vegeta needed to take control of the situation.

He knew that his species would die out; there was no way to stop the inevitable. There were four males left and ... it just would not work, he knew. Yet, if his race was going to disappear, he didn't want the name and fear associated with Saiyajin to vanish into the history books. Thus, the Saiyajin Empire had to somehow live on to strike terror just as all Saiyajin had done to the masses. None would be able to forget the Saiyajin if such a universal campaign was made.

Vegeta wouldn't even think about that which he had left behind on Chikyuu. If Kakarotto had been impregnated ...

_Well, I just won't think about that, now will I?_ He thought idly to himself as the blood slid down the top of his arm, coating over the hairs there.

_I'm strong enough to not think about her and ... anything that we might have created. She's alive and well, and if she is ... **that**, then she should be ecstatic. She won't have to try any foolish stunts to track me down. Besides, if she does manage to find me out here, I won't ... I won't follow her back._ Chikyuu would not be missed, and neither would Kakarotto.

And it wasn't possible to miss someone that he had never met ...

_... Kakarotto, you must understand ... I mean, I do ... We don't fit. I could never be a father for our children, or a proper mate for yourself. The last time I held an infant, I crushed its head! So stop trying to infiltrate my mind!_

With an audible snarl, Vegeta turned back to the mirror he had just smashed into pieces moments before - his blood still smeared across many of the shards - and he punched it again, concentrating on the pain.

"King Vegeta?" Paragus shouted over the sounds of breaking glass.

Stopping and pulling out a piece of the mirror from under a loose flap of skin, he said calmly, "The door's not locked."

The door slid open, and Paragus hesitated in the doorway upon laying his eyes on Vegeta's fist, "Ah ... are you all right, my King?"

"Shut up," he said, looking up at him. "What do you want?"

"There's an emissary here from the Kold Empire."

A scowl flashed over his face, and then stayed there as Vegeta thought about the family members that Freeza and King Kold had left behind. Perhaps they were going to surrender to him, but then again, Vegeta had never heard of a family member of Freeza ever succumbing to another.

However, it was something for him to do.

Anything to draw his mind away from thoughts of Kakarotto filled with his child.

Thus, Burori and Paragus led their prince out onto the deck. Upon stepping into the bridge of the ship and when Vegeta looked up, he stopped cold in his tracks - and he wasn't entirely sure if the pun was meant to incite laughter or horror.

Before him stood Freeza's older brother, Kooler. He looked mildly displeased, but, having been one of _Freeza_'s soldiers, the Saiyajin Prince wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

His tail cracked hard onto the metal floor, causing it to dent downward a few centimeters, "Oops, pardon me."

"Emissary indeed," Vegeta grunted, eyeing the Icejin.

He laughed softly, "That's what they called me? Excuse this old tirade of racism, but you monkeys really know how to _not_ read up on the meanings of words; though it is a breath of fresh air that you seem to know your vocabulary, dear Prince Vegeta."

"King now if you believe it," Vegeta said, still wary.

"I heard something to that effect, I believe," he said as he smiled thinly.

"So what is it that you want here?"

He said rather promptly, "The female Saiyajin called Son Gokuu. She's killed my father and younger brother, and though they were both fools, it'd be a shame for their deaths to go unpunished."

At the sound of her Chikyuu name, Vegeta began to hold his breath, but after he finished, Vegeta slowly exhaled, "Kakarotto's dead - consider it a favor that I killed her for you." _Why – even now – do I have to protect you, Kakarotto? You better be pregnant for your sake, otherwise this protection is pointless._

--

Gokuu frowned softly as her scanning senses caught hold of several energy signals beginning to rise rapidly. Two of them were very close in their strength, and the slightly stronger of the two felt familiar. However, it was the third that was rising which really grabbed her attention.

_The Legendary!_

Focusing on his energy, Gokuu's fingers touched onto her forehead, and after a moment of concentration, she teleported near to him – in between the other two powers which seemed to be far enough away from him. It was so that he couldn't reach her for an attack without having to go through the other power signals that she had sensed.

Upon coming back together, she opened her eyes only to see the face of Vegeta. In her shock, Gokuu stumbled back from his own widening and astonished eyes.

"Kakarotto?"

His arm then shot out as if to grab her arm, but strong arms from behind herself dragged her out of Vegeta's reach. Seeing as Gokuu was not powered up and still thunderstruck at the sudden appearance of the prince, it was no surprise that said arms were able to knock her out when she was thrown headfirst into a wall.


	13. Fallen Embers

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Thirteen: Fallen Embers

--

Vegeta's heart stopped as he watched her head smash into the wall, the dull thud of her body hitting the floor resonating through the ship. He suppressed a shudder, and waited for her to rise again. Yet she did not, and though he knew her to not be dead, Vegeta still felt his beat skipping heart sink.

The Icejin said with a light laugh, "What's wrong ... King Vegeta?"

"Shut up," he said woodenly. _If she's ... if she **was** ... would that kill it? Is it all right?_

"You look so shocked though," Kooler said, and walked over to Kakarotto's prone body. "Shocked to see her alive maybe? Or did you just lie to me?"

Hesitant, Vegeta reached out in his mind, **Kakarotto?**

"My king?" Paragus spoke up cautiously when Vegeta appeared to not want to answer.

"I just said to shut up," he murmured. "That means you too, Paragus."

"But, my lord-"

Vegeta swung first, without thinking, and backhanded the man away from him.

"Shut ... up ..." the Saiyajin didn't look back as he strode to Kooler who had been about to lift up Kakarotto - his purple hand already grasping the loose back of her shirt, like handling the loose skin of a tiny kitten. "And _you_. Stay away from her."

Kooler began to smirk, "I _was_ only going to get rid of one monkey today, but I don't mind killing five." He picked her up regardless of his threatening glare, and glanced out a porthole of the ship. "Perhaps there is a planet near by so that we may duke this out properly. What do you think, Saiyajin?"

"That would suit me just fine," Vegeta said, hearing Paragus finally rise with a soft groan.

"Ah," Kooler then exclaimed, "there seems to be a planet right over there." He turned to one of the men who had followed him in, "Go see if our monkey friends can breathe on it."

--

Gokuu groaned softly, and then sat up slowly while clutching to her aching skull. It was a dull pain, so she knew that she could endure it, but it was still pain.

Cracking her eyes open, she began to notice that the ground beneath her was shaking. Almost like an earthquake, but more uneven feeling - it was as if the ground was crumbling inward right under her feet. After a moment, she realized that her right leg was buried to the knee in the ground. The ground looked like it was made up of a bunch of crumbling rocks that were alive, and would not cease shifting and grinding. Son Gokuu was slowly sinking!

Hurriedly, she pulled out her leg, and lurched to her feet, but then felt lightheaded after. Taking a deep breath, she found herself grasping for more air only a few moments later. The air was too thin for her to breathe!

Eyes darting around at her surroundings just as things started to spin, she caught sight of a plastic mouth starting to become buried into the moving sands and rocks. It looked like the lower half of a gas mask that she saw in old war pictures. Taking a chance, Gokuu dove for it, and put it on after shaking it clean quickly.

Air – stale, but still air – was sucked into her lungs when she inhaled, and she smiled lightly in relief.

When she had her breathing under control, she took the mask off to get a better look at it, and realized that the strap was broken. Perhaps, someone had put it on her, and it broke. She took another breath from the mask, and then tied the strap back together before looping it around her head so that the mask could remain on her face without the help of her hands.

Gokuu studied her surroundings again. Since she wasn't worried about breathing anymore, she began to ponder over what had just happened, and why she was where she was.

_I saw Vegeta-kun ... but was it just a dream? But then why am I in this place?_ Her eyes widened in shock, _What **is** this place?_

There was no sky. Just a blanket of stars and a white sun which cast out dim light onto the gray rock in a soft black and white sunrise. If she were to hold out her fist at arm's length, her fist would be about the size of the sun and the resulting rays around it which would not stop moving.

The lack of sky, however, was not a clear, beautiful, picturesque painting. The night - or possibly late day - sky was littered not with just stars, but debris of all sorts. Gokuu could see the glitter of gold-, bronze-, and silver-colored metals floating high in space, and pieces of what appeared to be gargantuan rocks with smaller rock fragment infused with it all. In a continuous stream, a few would slowly fall to the ground before starting to burn brightly as they fell faster, and then impacted into the ground.

That was, if they did not burn away into nothing

Swallowing hard, she listened to the crashing meteorites. After a moment, she heard something which sounded much more familiar to her ears, and she looked back over her shoulder to see the dancing lights of energy being traded back and forth. Her jaw would have dropped if it weren't for the constricting mask, but her mouth did part in a bit of awe.

It was Vegeta's golden energy from his Super Saiyajin form.

Gokuu watched the fight a bit longer, trying to determine just what was happening. Vegeta seemed desperate - attacking his assailant with a fervor that she could not rightly read from her vantage point. Flying over quickly, he and his opponent became larger and larger, so that when she was close enough to really see the fighters, she stopped in shock.

_Is that Freeza? It can't be. Freeza's dead!_

--

His body was scorched. Not all over though. His hands stung - dry - even under his white gloves, and his face felt like someone had scraped a star against the right side of it, and he knew that there was a trail of blood dripping from a wound just above his eyebrow. It was not the only one.

An abrasion along his shoulder itched like mad, and was likely already starting to become infected from all of his wrestling with Kooler and his intimacy with the ground.

A newer, charred wound across his back aggravated him with every twist and turn of his torso. Even his arms stretching out for a punch or dealing energy blasts to Kooler made Vegeta want to cringe. However, he persisted through the pain for it was inconsequential and meant nothing when he had sustained much worse. He had felt more pain when Freeza had killed him. Thus, he fought on.

Besides, he was still unsure as to whether Kakarotto was with his child or not.

He had to live to know the answer.

Panting hard, the Saiyajin male watched as the newly transformed Kooler chuckled darkly behind the visor over his mouth, "You look like you've seen better days, my _King_."

"Actually, I was just thinking that I've seen worse. Your little brother was not as _gentle_ as you."

The dark red eyes narrowed dangerously, and he said, "You'll be begging for my brother to beat you before I'm through with you."

It was Vegeta's turn to laugh at that, "Go ahead; make my day!"

He shouted, and Kooler threw a barrage of yellow energy blasts after Vegeta felt his energy skyrocket. Grimacing, Vegeta crossed his arms in front of his face to defend himself, the balls hitting his crossed arms, and repelled easily, but the intense heat from the attacks couldn't be avoided as easily.

There was always heat in battle - from the warmth of another body to the searing waves of energy. Heat ruled in combat, and Vegeta fought the heat.

Before the dust could settle, Vegeta charged through it, bringing his fists upon Kooler's unprotected stomach. The Icejin grunted, and came to his own defense, making Vegeta try to settle the fist match which resulted. His opponent was fast, however he was confidant that Kooler's speed was nothing compared to his own. Vegeta knew it to be a fact actually.

Yet, speed wasn't everything - just as strength wasn't.

For the moment – in the midst of the flying punches – it was what he needed. An abrupt uppercut to Kooler's chin caused the Icejin to fly back a meter or so, allowing Vegeta to backpedal for some time. Vegeta's elbows bent back at either sides of his torso, gathering energy into his hands, and then he shot his fists forward to join them together before a beam of white-hot energy erupted into Kooler's face.

Watching with grim apprehension as the beam engulfed the reptilian creature, he spit at the ground when the beam disappeared with Kooler still alive - if not annoyed, and battered.

"That hurt, monkey king," said Kooler, and he raised his hand up to blast a larger orange energy ball at him.

Bringing a thin layer of energy to his hand, Vegeta knocked it back, and then followed it quickly. When the blast smacked into Kooler, he didn't wait for the resulting heat wave and smoke to settle. Vegeta dove into the acrid smell of burnt flesh, and brought both fists down onto his back.

Crying out in surprise, Kooler spun around as he fell, and screamed as he shot a red beam from his finger toward Vegeta's chest.

After attempting to dodge, Vegeta felt the singing heat before the pain became apparent, and he spun away, groaning as he clutched his shoulder.

Slowly dropping to stand on what looked like a solid rock, Vegeta gazed up at him with narrowed eyes, assessing the situation. A charge in his condition would wear him down faster - especially if the charge was energy based - so he opted to stick where he was to wait for his attack instead.

Adjusting the breathing mask on his face, Vegeta took a deep breath to make sure that he wouldn't faint from blood loss.

This planet ... the one that Kooler had pointed out to - it wasn't a true planet in the sense of the word. In actuality, it was a collection of asteroids all crammed together by the force of gravity.

Upon destroying planets, those sent on purging missions were required to inform the base of the action so that a special team could come in and clean up the mess. Any nuclear leftovers were swept clean, and then a simple machine was left behind. It's only function was to spin - to spin millions of kilometers an hour. The resulting pull of this spinning machine would attract what was left of the annihilated planet around it.

Selling, destroying ... and creating worlds had been Freeza's family's business.

From what Vegeta had gathered about this certain lump of rocks was that it was near to two thousand and five hundred years in the making. The fact that it had an atmosphere after so little time was astounding. The maker of this planet was unknown, as was the technology used to help create it, but it was surely developed by a mastermind. No other planet was known to have developed an atmosphere that early.

A brilliant array of colors then flashed on the horizon, and, startled, Vegeta turned to look at the source.

The white sun of this system had found a prism of sorts from all of the metal. From his vantage point, the sun's white rays became scarlet, gold, indigo - the whole rainbow glimmered from the sun, lighting up the dull, gray, young morning.

_Kakarotto would love this ..._ the thought came unbidden, and he didn't think odd of it.

"Vegeta, watch out!" A familiar voice shouted, startling him into action.

Leaping into the air, he dodged the first blast, and then fell because of the next, groaning as his charred back scraped up hard against a pile of sharp stones. He looked upwards, only to see Kooler who had started a course for him. With a cry, Kakarotto slammed her fists into Kooler's back, causing him to smash into the ground with such force that he was buried into the swirling, grinding rocks.

She settled onto the moving ground, glowering at the swirling mass of rocks that Kooler was still inside of, and Vegeta heaved himself to his feet. Landing in front of the girl, he grabbed her shoulders, looking her over carefully.

"Vegeta, what's going on? Was that Freeza?"

She looked just fine, "Just stay out of this. He wants to kill you."

Her lips turned down into a pout, and he felt like kissing them, "Don't do this. You know I can fight too."

"Yes, but you don't need to."

"What?" Her pout disappeared gradually, and her head tilted to the side. "But why?"

"Just let me fight, Kakarotto." _If anything happens to anything in there ..._

Kooler erupted from the ground in a spray of gray rocks, and snarled, "It's certainly charming how you're protecting her, King Vegeta, but this little game has gone on long enough. It's about time that I finally kill you both!"

Kakarotto looked up at them, and seemed about to protest before Vegeta covered her mouth, "For once, stay out of my fights."

"... For once," she said.

As the Icejin started to power up again, Vegeta watched the lights from his swirling, rising energy dance over her round face, and then he faced away from her, "Now get out of here."

"I missed you, Vegeta," she said. "Don't make me miss you more."

With that said, the Saiyajin female flew away to a safe distance. Feeling better that Kakarotto was letting him do this, Vegeta charged his own energy up, the golden lights crackling over his frame, and he felt the surge rush through his veins as it always did. And the heat was there.

Suddenly, Kooler shot up into the sky, raising a finger into the air, and a Death Ball grew rapidly atop it, "I'll just get rid of you all in one shot – no use playing the fool. I've heard of Saiyajin males protecting their females, _and_ I've heard what happens when the male is done mauling the attacker. It's not a pretty sight."

Grimacing, he powered up further, trying to control all of the energy swelling inside. When the Death Ball was thrown, Vegeta braced himself for the impact. Though it was still a ways away from him, he could feel its baking mass come closer, and when he caught it, his hands felt as if they were on fire. Grappling with the great energy ball, Vegeta grunted while attempting to press it back – the trick was to use his strength to push it away enough so that he could prepare a retaliatory energy blast to send it all the way back.

He had to keep Kakarotto and their child safe!

To let out all of the pressure building inside of him due to the amount of exertion used for pushing it slowly back, the male Saiyajin screamed. Vegeta charged an energy beam when he knew it to be far enough away, and shot the Death Ball, "Final Flash!"

The change in its course was immediate. As he kept his powerful beam pumped with pure energy, the Icejin was too shocked to move. Or maybe he didn't know how hard it was to block something of that size when one didn't have something to brace back against. Vegeta had learned that the hard way in his first battle with Kakarotto.

Kooler was hit by both explosions of energy with such force that Vegeta got to watch him and the energies disappear into the white sun.

--

Gokuu smiled as she tapped on the tank glass, and waved to the man who was floating ... _naked_ inside. He gazed back – partly amused, yet annoyed. She splayed her fingers out to outline his figure, smiling brighter as he stiffened when she traced over his penis through the glass. Scowling, he lifted his arms up in the green substance, and mimicked twisting her nipples, making Gokuu flush a red hue.

She stopped her teasing with a grin.

Dropping the arm that had the wounded shoulder, he placed the other hand against the glass that was up to her waist level. She put her hand over the glass between them where his would was, but Vegeta shook his head, and then began to point at her waist.

"Huh? What is it?"

**... Are you pregnant?**

Her jaw dropped, and she covered her mouth in surprise, "You can-?"

**Don't say anything. Just nod or shake your head.**


	14. Sands of Time

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Fourteen: Sands of Time

--

Her lips pursed thoughtfully, and she looked down at her belly, framing it with her hands as she did. For a while, she did nothing - only stared at the hard abs peeking through her gi. Gokuu shrugged, **I don't know.**

Vegeta scowled, his eyes flattening, **You don't know.**

She nodded, and, smiling softly, leaned in closer to the glass, **So ... you don't mind if I'm pregnant or not?**

**Of course, I mind! It would be _my_ brat too!** He turned his nose up a little at her, smirking behind the breathing apparatus, **As if I'd let you take care of my heir ... you'd spoil him.**

**What if _she_ is a girl?**

**... Ridiculous,** he looked away from her, and Gokuu thought his scowl appeared as a pout.

Smiling lightly, she watched him silently a while longer before she knelt before the tank, **... Vegeta-kun, tell me why you left,** his left eyebrow twitched

**That's none of your concern, Kakarotto.**

**It is when you left me worried sick about you. I _could_ be pregnant for all you know, and you left me!** Her eyes shone brightly in the light of the medical bay, and she bit her lip to stop herself from shouting at him anymore.

He scowled around the thing on his face, **And now I'm here ... so stop your blubbering, I'm ... here.**

**And what's that supposed to mean to me, Vegeta? What in that is supposed to make me think that you will be here in the future? I need ... Vegeta, I need you around. I can't explain it very well, but I need you. It hurt so much when I couldn't find you. When I thought you had died!**

She practically heard him snarl in the telepathy, **Why do you always have to ask these things of me? What more am I supposed to say to you when I've already expressed myself to my limits? I'm here. I want to ... you're going to carry all of my brats, and I'll-**

Gokuu felt the pull of her lips into a small smile as he kept on rambling, and then jumped in surprise when someone ran into the room, "Vegeta-sama! We found something! It's extraordinary!"

He stopped short, and looked down at her from his height, blinking in a bit of confusion. She smiled, and waved up at him, "Hi, I'm Son Gokuu. What's your name?"

"Ah ... Kakarotto, you're awake now. I wasn't expecting that ..." he bowed to her, while waving his cape behind himself, "I am Paragus, King Vegeta's advisor - and as such, I am also at your own disposal, my queen."

Her face broke out into a smile, and she tapped on Vegeta's tank, **Hey, Vegeta! He thinks I'm a queen! ... Vegeta?**

Vegeta – simply put – did not look happy, **That imbecile! We're not completely bonded yet, and no ceremony was made. How dare he assume that I took you as mine!**

"... Hey, I don't think Vegeta likes you calling me a queen."

He smirked, "Ah, I see. Then, perhaps, Brolli, Turles, and I could prepare an appropriate wedding ceremony for yourself and King Vegeta."

_Wedding ceremony? I think Chichi and Bulma said something about that ..._ Gokuu looked at Vegeta again who was still aggravated, "Uh, I don't think he wants that either."

Frowning softly, Paragus said, "Then we'll talk with him at length about it later. It would not do for his mate to not be given a proper title."

"Uh ... right," Gokuu said, her eyes still on Vegeta before she looked up at Paragus, "Who's King Vegeta? And why am I his mate?"

Paragus laughed, and pointed at Vegeta, "There's your king right there."

"No, he's a prince," she told him with a smile.

"However, now that's he's back with his people, he must be in a position to lead us. As a prince, he doesn't hold that much weight, but as our proud king, we shall obey him without question!"

"Oh ..." she brightened after, her tail starting to wag at the prospect of something fun, "So what'd you find?"

"Ah, yes ... well, I think that we should wait for King Vegeta to heal entirely."

--

Gokuu followed the male Saiyajin down onto the planet, fiddling with the clear gas mask around her face. Vegeta snapped at her again, looking back at her from the near-to lead from behind Paragus who was taking them to whatever was so interesting, "Stop playing with it, Kakarotto. It's helping you breathe on this rock."

"It just feels funny. I'm not going to take it off," she said, but dropped her hands anyway as she jogged up to him to try catching up, and then tripped over a rock that shifted in front of her foot, "Ah!"

The male caught her arm, hauling her back onto her feet, "Be careful, you clumsy thing ... The rocks aren't going to stop moving any time soon, so just watch where you're walking." He didn't let go of her arm until she was walking beside him for a few moments, and was absolutely sure that she was paying attention to her surroundings. Gokuu frowned up at him, not liking the fact that he was treating her like some child, **Silly, little thing, if you don't stop tripping over yourself here, and you _are_ pregnant, you might lose it!**

She sobered quickly, feeling a bit lost at the thought of such a thing happening. "Hey, Vegeta?"

"What?"

"Why's the ground moving anyway? And why's the sky so dark even though it's daytime ...? Or is it daytime? I mean, I _think_ that's a sun ..."

He grunted, "I always forget about how primitive Chikyuu is compared to us, Kakarotto. This is a developing planet. Normally, there shouldn't be an atmosphere at this stage of its development, but whatever technology was used to construct this planet into being is a marvel compared to what Freeza has been using. Those planets will take at least over fifteen thousand years before an atmosphere shows up, but according to the records, this one only took three thousand years. Two thousand and fifty actually, but ..." Vegeta trailed off after looking at her blank face.

Scratching the back of her head, Gokuu said with a nervous laugh, "I lost you after you said my name."

Grumbling, Vegeta began over again after a slight pause in thought, "See those asteroids out there?" He pointed into the black sky, "That's what's left of the asteroid belt that used to be in this solar system."

"Uh, okay ..."

"Most of the time though, people would only do this with the rubble of a planet someone purged and destroyed. After a planet was destroyed, someone would put a machine where the planet used to have its natural axis. This machine used gravity to attract the asteroids and gases around it into a ball, okay? That's why there are so many of those asteroids impacting against the planet."

"Oh ... So after you destroyed a planet, you'd do the same thing? Put that machine in the planet's place?"

He looked away, "Actually, no. I destroyed the planet, and then told a team that specializes in that sort of thing."

She smiled softly, and deftly changed the subject, walking closer beside him, "So why can I see the stars and the sun at the same time?"

"It's the atmosphere," she frowned in confusion, and he corrected himself, "the air, Kakarotto. There's not enough air, and so there's almost nothing to reflect a sky against. In fact, it's very unsafe for us to be out here." **And I only let you out here because you whined so much about it. If you really _are_ pregnant, I'm blaming _you_ if the kid's mutated or worse.**

"... Wow, Vegeta, you're really getting overprotective, huh?"

"Hm ..." he smirked after he glanced up at Paragus, waiting until it seemed he wasn't paying them any mind, and then drew her waist up against his briefly, placing his palm on her rump and his fingers slipped between her legs, **You know how much I wanted to bend you over in the medical bay?**

Feeling her body heat up, her cheeks flushed when she felt his nose touch against her cheek, **Be - bend me over?**

"Here, Vegeta-sama," Gokuu's head snapped over to Paragus who had just spoken, and she felt Vegeta's wayward hand draw away from her.

Vegeta scowled down at the hole in the shifting ground, "Awfully dangerous, don't you think? Wouldn't anything down there be crushed into nothing by now?"

"There's a hollow asteroid below, and so far," he began, "it seems that it's holding up to this environment. What we found was inside. It would have burned away to nothing on the way down if it wasn't. I'm surprised it survived the fall even inside of the asteroid actually."

"Let's go then!" Gokuu jumped in, ignoring Vegeta's surprised shout of her Saiyajin name.

**Kakarotto! It's not safe for you!** She heard him shout into her mind, **You don't know what's down there.**

**Seems that you don't either,** she smiled, and stepped closer to the two men who had turned to stare at her when she had entered inside of the ... asteroid was it called? Tilting her head to the side, she spotted something sitting past them - against what might have been called the 'wall' of the large space that was inside the asteroid. As she came closer to them and the object resting against the wall became clearer, Vegeta landed in the place where she had just been.

"Damn it, you always have to jump into everything, don't you?"

"How else am I supposed to live?" She was then walking around the two strange men, crouching down to get a closer look at the skeleton. "... You guys found a dead guy?"

"Not just any dead guy," someone chuckled, and she looked back over her shoulder at the shorter of the two strangers. For a moment, she stared at him in slight disbelief - his hair looked almost exactly like her own! "That's a bona fide _Saiyajin_ dead guy."

"Really?"

"That's impossible," Vegeta grunted, coming over to peer at the skeleton. "It'd take over five millennia for a corpse's flesh to completely decompose in the vacuum of space. If the information on this sector is true, then the earliest people to have even come _near_ this dump was only about two or three thousand years ago."

"It clearly has a Saiyajin skeletal structure; the tail bone is actually a bit longer than usual, but according to some studies that was normal for Saiyajin of that time period."

Gokuu watched her prince stiffen slightly before he asked him, "What time period?"

The man smirked, "About three thousand years ago." He looked over at Gokuu, and smiled, "Heard that you don't remember anything about us, so let me give you a little history lesson. Three thousand years ago was when the Legendary Super Saiyajin lived."

"You mean the guy that's related to Vegeta-kun?"

"Ah, it appears that Vegeta-sama has been educating you. Perhaps you know a few words of Saiyago as well?"

"'Saiyago' ...?"

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head at Vegeta, "Just what have you been doing with this young lady? ... Ah, stupid question, right?" He directed his gaze back toward the Saiyajin girl, "So, do you think that this dead dude is willing to tell us something about himself?"

A smile lit up her face, "You mean he can talk?"

Laughing, he said, "No, Kakarotto, but I _can_ poke at his remains. And I bet that he's got a lot of stuff with him that can tell us some things."

"Really? What kind of things?"

He grinned, a row of fangs glinting in the lamp's light – all the while looking as if he were telling her a ghost story, "Like why a three thousand year old Saiyajin skeleton is in a sector that no one's been in for two thousand years. _And_ why this skeleton shows signs of an ancient curse."

Her eyes widened, and she leaned toward him, "He's _cursed_?"

"No, he cursed someone else, or rather – from the multitude of markings on the bones – he cursed a lot of people ..." he suddenly frowned in concern, and grabbed the skeleton's skull, tilting it closer to look at a particularly nasty indent in the forehead.

Paragus asked, "Turles, what is it?"

"... Let's bring him into the ship now."

"_Turles_, tell-"

"Hurry up!" The Saiyajin male stood up abruptly, and then picked up the whole heap of bones – every bone on the skeleton thankfully staying in place as he started for the exit of the asteroid.

The other males looked agitated due to his rudeness, and Gokuu was about to follow them out, but something on the ground attracted her attention. She picked it up to stash it in between the sash of her gi and her stomach, and then tightened her sash so that it would not fall out as she quickly caught up with them.

She was a few steps out of the asteroid and walking on the moving surface of the planet when she felt it. The feeling crept up along her spine first, and then rebounded through the air as if a weight flew away from her shoulders. Looking back, Gokuu saw the energy spikes in the air. Both were deep blues, and she could feel the happiness radiating off of the swirling masses. One of the indistinct shapes looked as if it were chasing the other through the sky atop clouds that were non-existent.

As the dark energies danced around each other, Gokuu thought that she could feel two other energies whorl along with the larger two. They were smaller in strength and power, and appeared to be joined - to the hip - of the energy signal that was so playfully being chased through the air.

"Vegeta, what's ...?"

He had stopped walking as well to gaze at the spectacle, "... You know there's no such thing as ghosts, right?"

"Huh ...? Well, yeah ... everybody's soul goes to see King Yama after they die."

"For some planets, there was no concept of ghosts, and instead thought that their energy remained. After someone died, their energy would come back and do things that the deceased had done while still alive, and the energy would 'relive' moments of high emotions," he murmured. "High emotions like horror, madness, or even elation."

Gokuu started walking again, smiling when he walked beside her, "Do you think that a part of my energy will stay and play with yours?"

"It's definitely a possibility ..."

With a wider grin, she changed tactics to get the response she really wanted, "Do you think our energy will make love to each other too?"

His eyes shot to glance over at her before looking straight ahead again, and he said to her after she thought that she saw some blood rush to his face, "I hope so."


	15. Heaven and Hell

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Fifteen: Heaven and Hell

--

Kakarotto often looked back over at the energy signals that flailed and danced behind them, but Vegeta tried to ignore them as best he could. They had put a sour note in his stomach, and he didn't like to think about why they were there. According to the information given on the sector that they were in, the planet being made used to be an asteroid field before they began the building process. That's what the information said.

Also, no other expeditions had come out this far into space before the building started. The fact that these playing energy signals were there though suggested that this was not so. Expeditions were a serious business - yet these energy signals ...

They appeared not as if they were flying through the air, but running upon solid ground. Solid ground of a planet that was no longer there.

_What's going on? The data says that there was never anyone here before, and that there was never a planet here before. But there's ghost things dancing on what might have been ground!_ He glanced up at Turles who was carrying the Saiyajin skeleton, _And where did **he** come from? Something's just not right about all of this ... A skeleton from the time of the Legendary ...?_

The remaining five Saiyajin climbed into the ship, but not before Kakarotto spun around, and waved to the energy signals, "I hope you had fun with your babies!"

"... They can't hear you, Kakarotto."

"It was worth a try," she fairly chirped, and then jogged into the ship with a little smile taking over her lips.

With a sigh, Vegeta followed the Saiyajin girl inside, and shut the pedestrian doors of the vessel before continuing the chase of her shadow. She looked back at him, and beamed a smile so radiant at him, he felt something stop in shock in his ribcage. _If she keeps smiling at me like that, I don't know what I'm going to do ... But I know I'll be doing it in private._

The two took after Turles, Paragus, and Brolli. The former was just laying the skeleton out on its back when they came in. He grimaced at the skeleton as he dusted himself off of invisible particles, and said, "Sorry about that ... just thought that it'd be best to do tests in the ship, and not inside a crumbling planetoid."

"Of course," Paragus murmured almost as if to himself, and then faced Vegeta and Kakarotto, "I take it, Vegeta-sama, that the young lady will be staying with us?"

"No," Kakarotto said just as Vegeta answered with, "Yes."

Her eyes widened in astonishment as she looked at him, "I can't stay here, Vegeta-kun. King Kai asked me to do something for him."

"That so? Well, your little King Kai is nothing compared to your Saiyajin king. I say you stay here. I shudder to think what kind of damage you'll do across the universe if I let you go out to do what you want."

Her lips pulled into a pout, "Vegeta, this is important. I'm not the one doing the damage; some other guy is, and King Kai wants me to stop him right away before he does anything else," she paused before she smiled a bit secretively. "I can take care of myself, Vegeta-kun. I've been doing it for years."

"That's besides the point! You don't know your way around, and it's easy to get lost in mostly uncharted territories like this one."

"But, Vegeta-kun," she started, "I can just search for your energy signal and use Instant Transmission to come back."

"Enough! You're staying, Kakarotto, and that's final!"

Kakarotto said nothing to him for a while as she took a glimpse at the other three watching - or perhaps she was looking at the skeleton laid out on the table - and then she smiled at him, "I just remembered something. So I guess I'll stay a bit longer. Is that okay with you?"

Snorting, Vegeta said, "Feh, likely excuse, Kakarotto. It's about time that you did something I told you to do."

She laughed, and walked over to the table with the Saiyajin skeleton on it, "Whatever you say."

"That's the whole point, Kakarotto!"

"Fine," she said smugly, reaching into her sash to pull something out of it, and settled it onto the armor piece just above the skeleton's chest, "I get it, Vegeta-kun. If you missed me that much, you just had to tell me."

"Rrg ... think what you like," his eyes flitted to the other males for a second to gauge their reactions to her declaration. Only one of them seemed to be paying them any mind, and that was Paragus. Brolli - as always - looked as if he was spacing out, and Turles was gaping at the skeleton ... or at what Kakarotto had placed on it.

" Vegeta-sama," Turles finally said, making them all look at him - sans Brolli. He picked up whatever Kakarotto had put there, and showed it to him, "It's your family's medallion."

As his jaw dropped, Vegeta snatched the necklace from him to peer at it closer. For indeed, the pink stone in the center with the alternating blue and light green triangular stones shaped the spitting image of the medallion that his father used to always wear. Vegeta couldn't remember a time that he had _not_ worn the elaborate piece. "This ... this is impossible," Vegeta said, his thumb tracing over the center stone - the one that was a smooth, light pink. Abruptly, he lifted his head, and grabbed Kakarotto's shoulder, "Where did you get this?"

"I found it in the cave thing. The Saiyajin dead guy dropped it, so I picked it up for him."

"_He_ dropped it?" Turles asked, "He must have stolen it then."

Vegeta directed his attention toward him, "What makes you so sure of that? Are you sure that he's not one of my ancestors?"

"He cursed us, my King," Turles looked near to snarling what he had claimed. "It's his fault that our planet was destroyed. Vegeta-sei would still be here if not for his doing!"

"What the hell are you babbling about?"

Turles pointed out to the marks that were etched onto the bones that he had showed Kakarotto before, "These. They tell all. And the one on his skull says that he cursed his own people. His people, Vegeta-sama! He killed the Saiyajin race with a few slices, and deigned for us to die! I gave you that book. You must have seen the prophecy. We're the eight!"

"... One, two, three ..."

Vegeta groaned, "Kakarotto ... yes, there are only five here, but ..." he looked at the skeleton, "Come on, I'll show you."

--

Gokuu poked at the book Vegeta had given to her, "... What's it say?"

Sighing, he grumbled, "I always forget that you know nothing about us ..." Then he took it back, and read to her after sitting down in a chair - he had brought her back to his modest chambers - "'Those of the past will meet again in the future. These eight shall bring down hardship on themselves to the lesser good of their race.'"

"'Lesser good?' Doesn't it mean 'greater good?'"

"No," he frowned as he read over the line slower to see if he had misinterpreted it, "it's 'lesser good ...'"

"Oh ... so these people hurt themselves just to hurt the other Saiyajin?"

"No, the one that cursed us just needed seven others that worsened either their fates or that of their Mirror Image's. According to this text, the one who cursed us is the seventh. He got rid of his hatred of the Saiyajin to make his Mirror Image."

Gokuu tilted her head to the side, "... Huh?"

He groaned, and then sighed, "... It was an old Saiyajin tradition. If you had the time to do it before you died, you could give a part of yourself up to make a new soul. Whatever parts you cast aside wouldn't be present in the new soul which would be born. It was like a way to make improvements of yourself. So ... let's say this man that cursed us is making his Mirror Image. He's a pretty mean, bad guy, right?"

She nodded, "Right."

"So as he's making his Mirror Image, all he gave up was hating his race - the Saiyajin. His Mirror Image is still the same mean, bad guy, but his Mirror Image will be completely enamored about being a Saiyajin. His Mirror Image won't hate the Saiyajin like the man that cursed us." When she nodded that she understood, Vegeta kept on with his explanation, "In order to initiate the curse, he had to find seven other people that had to do the same thing. They had to give up something that would either make them unhappy or their Mirror Images unhappy. Like the first. He gave up looking after his family, and the second gave up jealousy. And these people were commonly called 'the eight' by the Saiyajin populace. We're the eight, Kakarotto. What's left of the eight anyway."

"You know, he sounds kind of sad," she said, "not bad at all ..."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed, "What do you mean? If Turles is right, then this man is responsible for the death of our entire race! The death of your parents and of my own. He's a murderer!"

"... But so are you," Gokuu told him, and Vegeta froze, staring at her in confusion. "He hates Saiyajin, right? But in order to make sure his curse works, he's got to make his Mirror Image into something that will make him unhappy. So he makes it so that his Mirror Image loves the Saiyajin race instead. He's sad, Vegeta-kun ... So! If we're these eight people, which ones are we?"

"You certainly make me wonder, Kakarotto."

"What?" Gokuu was suddenly pulled toward him, held fast to his chest with his powerful arms. Yet she did not pull back away from him because she welcomed his touch, and let herself melt against his muscles and frame, allowing his hands to roam where they willed.

"The way you talk about him. You know next to nothing about him, but you've already linked him to me. He's a murderer ... I'm a murderer, but ..." he dug his fingers into her breasts then, and Son Gokuu began to breathe heavier, her body suddenly alighting with want for this man, "Why do you let a murderer touch you like this?"

When Vegeta's thumbs and forefingers concentrated on the tips of her breasts, she exhaled a soft cry, "I - I let you because I trust you, Vegeta." _And I need it,_ her mind crooned in the recesses of her sub-consciousness.

Sighing, he enfolded her closer - nearly crushing her, but Gokuu felt right at home, "Kakarotto, you shouldn't trust me ... ever."

She just smiled up at him, "If you are his Mirror Image, then I _really_ don't think he's such a bad guy."

"You have a remarkable way of avoiding the issue, don't you?"

"You think so? I thought we were talking about the same thing here," she said, and turned around to straddle his lap, beginning to pull off his armor.

"What are you doing?" He asked when she got it over his head, and tossed it to the floor of his room.

"Getting rid of your clothes. Tell me more about this eight thing. Who do you think I am?"

"I have no idea," he murmured, his voice laced with amusement. "She must have been a very naughty girl though."

She paused in taking off his shirt, hands fisted in the cloth over his abs, "You mean I used to be a bad person?"

"Mmhm," he seemed to moan, and she felt her cheeks heat up when his black eyes met her own. Vegeta tickled her shoulders and down her arms with the very tips of his fingers, "A bad girl that got into a lot of trouble. I bet that you were a little third-class back then too." As she shivered while his hands rested on her lower back, he said to her, "I probably had to punish you for many infractions, Kakarotto. I was very likely a behemoth with my power compared to yours." She listened as his breath quickened, and she felt his member which was resting snuggly between her legs stir and harden, "I could have crushed you easily back then. It would have been so sweet to watch you writhe from exertion to match me."

Trying to hide her red face, Gokuu said softly, "I thought you were talking about punishing me."

"There are many ways in which to torture someone," he murmured against her lips. "Would you like me to demonstrate, Kakarotto?"

"Oh, Vegeta ..."

"Vegeta-sama!"

Startled by the sudden intrusion by Turles, the two jerked to attention, and Vegeta pulled the female up tighter against him. Gokuu smiled secretly to herself in the prince's chest, panting lightly - both from passion and surprise.

"Um ..." the other male stared at the two for a moment before laughing nervously, "Ah, I see that you haven't finished the ... lesson."

In a deadpan voice, Vegeta said, "That's right. Now get out." After the door shut, Vegeta's fingers stroked through her hair, and she felt his nose nuzzle in too, taking a long inhalation of her scent, "Now, then … Where were we, Kakarotto?"

"Vegeta ..." she whispered into his ear, laying her breasts flush against his chiseled chest, and she started to pull the shirt up. Gokuu grinned up at him, a fang poking out from under her lip, "Vegeta-sama ..."

"Nn ... Kakarotto ..."

--

Red sky. Gokuu smiled softly at the thought that it must have been Vegeta-sei's sky.

"I never made you smile like that."

Jerking in shock, she turned around to see Vegeta's back, "Huh? What are you talking about? I smile at you all of the time."

"So you do, but never have you smiled at me like that before. Not _because_ of me," Vegeta whispered. "I always seem to make you cry. Your smiles are because of other things - other people."

**That power you have within would make you a great asset, so I want to make a deal with you.**

Gokuu's eyes widened, and she looked around for the owner of the new voice, "Who's there?"

**I don't make deals with murderers,** a woman's voice claimed, but the male's voice laughed.

Nearly cringing as that ethereal conversation made her remember Vegeta's question before, she turned to him again, "What's going on?"

"Why won't you smile at me like that?"

"But I - I do smile at you, Vegeta! I smile all the time!"

He spun around to face her, and she then realized how strange his outfit looked. His roughly sewn pants of light leather, and the armor that looked as if it had been made from a particularly large insect were things she had never seen before, "No. You look at me in fear. You look at me in passion and lust - in utter faith. But I can't make you smile."

"... Maybe not you, but I smile at _my_ Vegeta."

**Kakarotto, you've piqued my curiosity. Your power is beyond that of the usual women of this planet, and I need that power. Shall we do business now?**

Swallowing nothing as the timing of those words, she looked about the red desert quickly before her eyes laid back on this strange looking Vegeta again. His skin was darker too - like the one in her other dream.

**I may have piqued your curiosity ... but you haven't piqued mine - not yet.**

_... What is this? What is it telling me? Change ... What they're saying is changing, but there's barely any change in what the man says!_

**Do tell me because I'm a bit at a loss. Are you accepting my offer of an alliance?**

_It's still the same! But why is he still the same? And ... he sounds like Vegeta ... So is the woman ...? _

**I don't know.**

Gokuu felt herself shudder. _That was different though. The woman is becoming more and more unsure. What happens if she agrees with him?_

"You've always agreed," someone said right into her ear.

Jumping away in surprise, Gokuu faced the newcomer, and her eyes widened, "Vegeta? But what-?" She looked over at where he _had_ been, only to pale to see him still standing there. The new Vegeta was wearing more armor than the other. His armor fitted over his entire body like that of a knight's - sans a helmet - but it still seemed to be that insect armor appearance.

"You've always liked making deals with me, Kakarotto," the new Vegeta murmured, the smirk that was so common on the Vegeta she knew then showed up on this one's face. "Will you make another one with me?"

**I, Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyajin, offer you the chance to stand beside me in this conquest. Think about it, you could have anything you want. Together we'd be unstoppable!**

"No," she whispered.

**I've seen how you treat your partners; there's not much job security.**

His eyes darkened - the ebony of his eyes suddenly a black hole sucking her in. "You _will_ make the deal. You _will_ give yourself to us once more."

"No! I won't! I won't give myself to you! I'm for _my_ Vegeta!"

This Vegeta threw back his head, and laughed, looking exactly like the Vegeta she knew when he did that. "It's the same thing, Kakarotto! You give in to him, and you give in to us."

She felt her heart tear at seeing him look so similar - the voice and words not helping either - and so she didn't speak for a while, just gazing at the two of them before she backed away, "But you're not ... my Vegeta ..."

"We're him - through and through," the first Vegeta said.

"Remember? We're all murderers, Kakarotto. We've always been murderers. So since we're all the same, you're essentially giving in to all of us if you give in to one of us."

"... Why do I have to give in? Why do you need me?"

"Because" - she felt strong arms wrap around her from behind, Vegeta's husky voice in her ear - "we have no one else to be with in infinity."

"Ah!" Spinning around to face him, Gokuu took in the sight of the third Vegeta who was wearing an oddly familiar red-lacquered armor. "Wait ... you're the-!"

A voice suddenly boomed over her words, nearly knocking her out cold as the force of it went over them. It almost reminded her of Vegeta's voice, but the sound was too loud, too deep to be discerned, and it seemed to hold a trace of what King Kai and King Yama seemed to sound like. Their voices always had an edge of antiquity to them, like they were trying to speak in another language or even hiding an accent. In particular, when she spoke with King Yama, she heard little whispers behind his words as he was talking. If someone didn't understand Japanese, it seemed that they would understand his words despite this because they would hear him whispering in their own language.

**Yes, I think you will be useful. Lovely child, would you do something for me?**

**What does a god want with me?**

--


	16. Hear You Me

**By the way ... for those of you who are unaware, I rewrote all of the chapters so that Gokuu's character didn't piss me off anymore. Expect more chapter updates soon. It's going to be a bumpy ride.**

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Sixteen: Hear You Me

--

_There's no one in town I know  
You gave us some place to go._

The second Vegeta forcefully yanked her back against his chest, his hand going across her face to cover her mouth, "Sweet Kakarotto ... the sweetest Kakarotto."

The Vegeta that she had first seen then stepped before her, smirking at her - likened to that of a particularly pleased cat, "Shush, darling Kakarotto," - he reached into a pouch at his belt before he showed her the medallion that she had found - "you don't need to worry with us here."

After a bit of a pause, he pressed down hard on the center, pink stone, and a light flashed from it, making the pink stone glow before a beam shot from without before it seemed to solidify into an image. It wavered a bit, but she could see a flash of Vegeta's face in the static of the hologram, and she swallowed hard as he began to talk softly in Japanese.

_I never said thank you for that.  
I thought I might get one more chance._

"I ... am not used to this speech, so forgive me if it ... is not correct." He paused for a long while before he smiled - just smiled, "Wherever you are ... whoever you may be ... I know you will not ... I know that you _cannot_ forgive me for these trespasses, so I will ask for ... I hope you understand. I don't ... want forgiveness. I just hope you understand it."

"But ... I don't understand," she said.

--

The taller figure frowned at the other when she did not roll the die, "What's wrong? Got to piss? Roll it."

"I'll pass this turn."

He scowled at her, "What do you mean? We're playing a game here, you have to roll."

Smiling mysteriously, her voice chimed, "Is that an actual rule of our game?"

"... Hm, I suppose not," smirking, he picked the black die with the black dots up, and shook it in his hands before tossing it onto the black board.

Leaning over the board, she looked down at it, and smiled, "'Fight or flight' again? You always get that."

"You get it often enough," he muttered before he scooped it up again to roll it, frowning anew at it, "I got it again ..."

Her smile grew, "You won this round then."

Hesitating, his hand went over the die before he took his hand back, "It's your turn now."

_What would you think of me now,  
so lucky, so strong, so proud?_

"I think I'll pass again."

The figure glanced at the black board, and frowned harder, "That's dangerous for your player, you know."

"Perhaps."

He grunted, "Perhaps ..."

--

Gokuu took his hand while he laid beside her, and nuzzled into it, frowning in worry at nothing over his head. She was rubbing the area over where her heart was, and took deep, slow breaths. His eyes were glittering in the dark from the starlight outside their portholes, and she squeezed tighter.

"Kakarotto, what is it?"

She blinked over at him a few times, as if not comprehending his being there before she grinned, and snuggled closer, "Tell me a story."

Grunting, he pushed her head down a bit teasingly, "Only if you su-"

"Vegeta!" Crawling on top of him, and ignoring his sudden, devilish grin, Gokuu pinched his cheek, "I want a story."

"Ugh ... fine. What kind of story?" He asked as he stroked her sides gently, and then pet her tail. When his hands were slapped away from her tail, he averted them to her thighs and hips with a snort for her actions.

"... Has there ever been a story about a man and a woman playing a game?"

His hands stilled, and Vegeta cocked his head to the side before he said slowly, "Yes ... There is one. They weren't a man and a woman though." When she waited patiently for him to continue, he groaned, "They were a god and a goddess of Vegeta-sei."

"What's it about?"

He grunted, grimaced, and then sighed, "... It's about the first and only goddess of Saiyajin Mythology.

"A very, very, very long time ago, the God of War made our planet. He gouged out his own eyeball, and, brushing at his naked body vigorously, he created the sands from his skin flakes." She made a disgusted face, and he laughed softly, shrugging, "I know, but bare with me here ... The waters were made from his tears, but being a war god, he could not cry easily. He only manages two teardrops - one from each eye. The tear from his empty eye socket created the lush lake at the northern part of the planet, and his remaining tear made one for the southern end. Because of such little water, the Saiyajin - created by the strong black hairs of his arms - were constantly fighting each other.

"The God of War was pleased with our race's violent tempers, but was disappointed that they did not wage full-scale wars over his rare tears. He went down to the planet, and found a young Saiyajin. He gave her the grace of speech, but found that she was unable to properly use the words he had taught her, so the god gave her the grace of complex thought. Thus taught, she was told to go on a journey over the planet to bestow these same graces upon the Saiyajin. However, she was a crafty woman, and before he could leave, she pleaded with him, saying that no one would listen to her because she was so frail.

"And so, winding together the strong hairs of his arms again, he gave her a tail, the third grace," grinning, Vegeta flicked the end of his own tail against her cheek, making her smile. "He told her to set out again, but again, she was wicked and crafty, pleading again. She said that when she teaches them of the art of warfare, they'll all kill each other, and the world will be empty again. To prevent this, he took his third ball, and-" he stopped in shock as Gokuu lifted up the blankets to check his genitals. "I only have two! Damn it, it's just a story, Kakarotto!"

Giggling, she laid over Vegeta again, and kissed him, "Sorry, continue."

Huffing, he eyed her again before he did so, "He took his third ball - which is the fourth grace - and cut it off, emptying it of its contents before placing it inside of her. He told her that the empty testicle will always want to be filled with seed again, so that is why women will go to men to for their seed." He stopped again when her brow became down turned.

"I thought that was called something else - not a testicle."

Clearing his throat, he looked away, "Yes, well, back then people made up all sorts of stories to explain such things since they didn't have the technology to know otherwise."

"Oh," she began, "that makes more sense."

"Anyway, after that, he was about to leave again, but she lamented _again_. The nights of Vegeta-sei were cold - below freezing every night, and many children might die from the cold instead of war - so the god taught her how to make fire. After he taught her the fifth grace, she then turned to the god just before he left once more, and she asked him how she would give the others these same wonderful graces since she didn't have the power of the god. So the God of War kissed her, breathing half of his abilities into her.

"She had one last trick up her sleeve, however, and she asked him how she would be able to do his bidding in one lifetime. The god was tired after doing all of these things for her, but he cut open his chest to give her half of his heart to make her immortal."

_I never said thank you for that,  
now I'll never have a chance._

At Gokuu's smile, he paused for a moment, realizing just what that must have meant to her with the sentimental teachings she had grown up knowing. To Saiyajin, it would have not meant the same thing, and he thought about telling her just that, but he cast aside the notion. _Let her think what she likes._

"... She did as he had asked, and soon the entire planet was engulfed in wars, greatly pleasing the God of War. The new goddess came to his seat on the moon where he and the other gods resided. They knew she was a trickster, however, and shunned her. Regardless, she went to the God of War, and asked him for one more grace. Down below, she had been among the Saiyajin, watching the towns and scattered villages flourish into great cities and empires. Being so close to them, she began to desire a child like the other women.

"She asked the god for the honor to carry his since - as a goddess - she could not do so with any mortals. The god refused her though, saying she had taken too much from him. Several hundred years later, she returned to the seat of the gods, and asked to play a game with him. They've been playing ever since."

"This is a sad story," she murmured.

Vegeta rolled his eyes, "Well, it's a good thing it's over. Kakarotto, if you were the God of War, then you would have covered Vegeta-sei in an ocean."

"But, wait, Vegeta, what kind of story was that?

He grunted, "I don't know - that's what Nappa and my father taught me."

"So ... what kind of game was it?"

"How should I know what kind of games that immortals play? They're probably playing with people's lives."

"Which means ... since they're Saiyajin Gods, they're playing with our lives," Gokuu said, and then pouted to herself, "That's not very fun to think about."

He grimaced, "I wouldn't be surprised if this is the work of that damned goddess then. She must have plotted the demise of the Saiyajin ever since he refused her the bastard child."

Blinking in thought, she laid her head on his chest, and, listening to his beating heart, watched him mutter obscenely for a while before he slipped into sleep. She was awake longer, however, and continued to gaze ahead at nothing, her hand still over her own heart.

--

"It's been two days now. Why the hell isn't she awake?"

Paragus scowled ahead at nothing, "Sire - for the last time - I do not know."

"_Don't_ get uppity with me, you worthless pile of shit," Vegeta snarled into the other's face, drawing closer to him. "My woman has been unconscious two fucking days, and you need to stop telling me that. You _need_ to give me answers!"

He watched his eye twitch - in what, Vegeta did not know, but it made him dislike the man even more, "I'm ... sorry, my King."

"Damn fucking straight, you're sorry. A sorry excuse for a Saiyajin!"

Paragus only bowed to him them, seemingly taking the insult.

Yet Vegeta could not quiet his mind. The girl had been just fine. Those few days ago, she had been as lively as ever - livelier with her showing how much she missed him.

He hadn't thought much of it when she didn't awake after the fiasco's much needed rest - 'snuggle-time' as Kakarotto had called it - but had there been something he should have noticed about her? Had there been something beforehand that Vegeta could have done to make sure that she had awakened too?

However, he knew there had been nothing of real notice about her. Kakarotto just looked as she always had after such marathons. Her slightly plump cheeks flushed with the exertion of their prior activities, and her lovely lips barely parted as her chest rose and fell with her breath lighting against her pillow. She had even been smiling sweetly at nothing.

Currently, smiling was the last thing that anyone could say Kakarotto was doing. He just didn't want to look at her - her features haunted and disturbed. She didn't look like herself when her lips were pulled back into a gaping mouth, her brow creased and wrinkled, and her chest heaving erratically. Something was just very, very wrong, and Vegeta felt helpless to do anything for her in her condition. What did he know of medicine and doctoring?

Nothing.

He was a warrior, and useless in that field unless called for dealing with battle wounds - just something impromptu that would hold until medical help was available. Yet there was no call for sloppy setting of bones or ripping up an enemy's clothes to stop up the bleeding. This was different.

His Kakarotto was sick.

"Find out now," Vegeta said with his fangs clenched tightly as he sneered at the other man.

"My lord," he bowed again - _Do something! Don't bow to me, you ingrate!_ - and then hurried out of the room.

--

Being a particularly strange boy, he did not jump up in an instant when he felt someone near to the Legendary. He did raise an eyebrow when there was a second power level with the Legendary. When he finally jumped up, it was not due to the fact that a third had joined him, but that he had realized how similar their energy signatures were.

So similar that they reflected the others' signatures exactly except for the ranges in their strength. Almost as though the Legendary was there three times.

_What's happening?_ His eyes narrowed when he felt several other groups of energy signatures approach, and the groups seemed to possess the same trait as the group of Legendaries in it.

Without hesitation, he set out to find these energy signals, not sure where they would lead him.

_May angels lead you in.  
Hear you me, my friends._

--

Gokuu sat up after a moment of laying there in the med bay, her head swimming with the odd piece of information. Suddenly she surged to her feet, not minding the strange draft inside of the ship as her bare feet padded over cold metal. When she reached the room where the skeleton had been laid to rest before they gave him a proper Saiyajin funeral, she went straight to him, placing her palm gently to his skull, and outlined the curse mark on his forehead.

Smiling sadly before kissing the mark as well, she then took the medallion, "I know you say you don't want it, but do I forgive you ... I don't think I was happy before, but now I am. Maybe ... what you wanted me to see - to understand was that you sacrificed everything for my happiness. Thank you."

Gazing a bit longer at him, Gokuu clutched the medallion tightly to her chest before she pressed the smooth pink stone, and a hologram appeared.

She stared at it, not quite comprehending the image there. To her, it seemed to be of two bulbous forms, moving and pulsing gently against each other - each form cocooned in their own bubble, yet both were tightly pressed together despite this. As she watched the strange image, a voice crackled from out of the medallion, speaking in strange disconnected warbles that was further distorted since the audio would often break, muting itself before coming on again. Through all the jumbled words, she could only make out one that she understood, and it was often joined with another.

"Ept Vegeta ... as ... re- ... Vegeta ... svel mrege ... Ept Vegeta ... -avlo ... kreg ... Ept Vegeta."

Eyes widened suddenly when one of the blobs turned, and she saw a small face attached to it. She traced over the face in the hologram, not touching it though for she didn't wish to disturb the image. A smile came over her lips, and she pushed the button again to see it switch to some other video. The infants in this image were larger, and she could actually see their little fingers and toes wiggling.

Giggling in delight, she pushed the button again, and then gasped softly, seeing a reflection of herself in the next hologram. She was decked out in a blue gown that had been made to form over her obviously pregnant girth. The woman that looked like Gokuu, smiled, and waved at whoever was recording the hologram, "Krea ko?"

Gokuu heard a man chuckle, and the image of the hologram shook a bit as if the one recording had been the man who laughed. It had sounded just like Vegeta's voice, "Aa, Kakarotto, kora."

_On sleepless roads the sleepless go.  
May angels lead you in._

The hologram woman's eyes widened, "Ept! Ro ... ro ..."

"Yuana po? Hasne'ko 'karo?'"

She flushed, and then her face changed as if she was angry instead, but the blush was too deep to be ire, "Ept Vegeta ..." The woman's face broke out into a frown then, "... Kakaro."

"Kakarotto," she jumped, and then turned off the hologram before she looked up to see Turles standing in the doorway, "What are you doing in here? What was that sound?"

"Nothing," for all of the fun she and Turles had been having before her awful dream, Gokuu abruptly couldn't stand being near the man - he was almost foreboding as he stepped inside of the room. She hid the medallion behind her back, and she saw Turles flinch.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, speechless, before he burst out, "Why are you naked?"

"Because I just woke up," she said. "I didn't feel like finding my clothes ..." Her eyes narrowed, "And for some reason, I woke up in the sick bay."

"You've been asleep for almost three days, Kakarotto. The king nearly joined you from worrying so much. We finally got him to rest yesterday, and he's been out like a lamp since."

Gokuu considered him before stating, "You forced him, didn't you?"

The male twitched again before he smirked, "You're not as stupid as I remember, and much more forthcoming about your enemies."

"What did you do to me and Vegeta?"

"Ept Vegeta is just taking a nap right now under the influence of some narcotics. He won't be up for a few hours yet. We did nothing to you," he grinned, and edged closer, "though it was a blessing when Ept Vegeta tore into my room, shouting about his poor Kakarotto who was unable to respond."

"You were lying this whole time. You tricked him!"

He grinned, and shrugged, "Only a little bit. Now come along, sweet niece, or we'll have to resort to using force like we did with Ept Vegeta."

_So what would you think of me now,  
so lucky, so strong, so proud?_

Going still in shock, she murmured, "'The fourth leaving behind the duty of kinship.'"

Turles only walked faster, and she leapt back, "Don't make me call in Brolli. He's lost all control. I'll bet he's number eight so he could keep on tracking you down. He hates you for some reason. We almost had to get rid of him before it was time because he kept trying to murder the baby."

It was Gokuu's turn to flinch, and she touched her lower abdomen, abruptly able to feel the tender energy inside, "...! You will not harm my child!"

"We will do what we want with the brat unless you do as I say. Get over here, Kakarotto. Ept Vegeta is waiting for you."

--

She followed him back down to the room she had shared with Vegeta for those few short days, and there she changed back into her gi even though Turles scowled at her. Vegeta was strapped and chained to the bed, his muscles straining weakly against the restraints. His eyes were open a fraction, yet she could see that his eyes were not focusing on anything, opting to roll back into his head or flail about erratically. Turles hadn't said anything against it, so she ran to his side, kneeling on the bed to press her palm to his labored chest.

Leaning over him, she could see that his eyes - seeing right through her - had constricted pupils. His cheeks and neck, reddened, were hot when she touched there tenderly, and felt at his pulse, which fluttered strong for her. Her own pulse began to quicken, and she clutched at her chest where her heart would be as she felt it ache, _Why does my chest hurt? Is it because of Vegeta ...?_

After checking him over, she choked out, "Is he going to be okay?"

"The drugs are wearing off quickly," the male Saiyajin said. "He should be up in about an hour."

"What did you do to him?"

"A simple narcotic. It sends the user into a dream world while he's still awake. He's probably aware of you in this state, but he's still dreaming. It's a rather nice drug actually." He turned to the door suddenly, and snorted, "It sure took you two a while. Where've you been?"

Gokuu looked up to see Paragus and Brolli come through the doorway. Eyeing the younger male, she saw no hatred toward herself or even Vegeta - just those dead black eyes like always. Had it been another lie concocted by Turles? With a frown, she briefly touched her stomach. She knew that even in her state, she could take down Paragus and Turles with relatively no worries. However, if what she suspected were true, she would need help with Brolli.

She had to stall for time until Vegeta woke up because she would not risk Brolli attacking her when she had no back up.

--

She finally picked up the die, and smiled at her black roll, "Oh, I got 'Abstract.'"

Looking over at the board, he then scowled, "I knew you were going to get that one sooner or later." After a moment, he picked the die up as well, the other figure taking up the new black die that had melded out of the board, "You always have more pieces to play with than me."

"You play with many pieces at once all the time. Do shut up."

With a bark of laughter, he rolled. "... Oh, I got 'Fight.'"

She smiled, "For once."

"For once," he grumbled. "Your turn."

Cocking her head to the side, she looked over the die before she shook her head, "I'll take the next turn."

He shrugged - now used to the odd way she was playing - and rolled, hissing in anger as all of his dice came up, "... I got 'Infinity' on all of them."

The figure frowned as well after she rolled, "I knew I should have waited another turn."

He laughed, "'Infinity!' The game is over!"

_I never said thank you for that,  
now I'll never have a chance._

"No," she mused, closing her eyes, "I do not believe so. It is only just beginning."

--

His forehead creasing, he tried to push aside the sleepy feeling about himself, but then groaned in pain. His head felt as if it was splitting in half, and his stomach was not faring any better. With a gargled moan, he turned over only to feel something around his wrist. Tugging fiercely at it, he dislodged whatever it was easily, allowing him to lean over and pant hard. For some reason, he felt eased breathing in such a manner, letting his stomach know it could expel whatever was bothering his system instead of choke him to death with him on his back.

He then lifted his eyes to look around, scowling at the brackets around his right wrist, and ankles before yanking them off as well.

Hissing at the pain in his head when he stood, Vegeta pushed aside the sensations in his effort to get air into his lungs. He felt better after a moment of this, and dared to trek toward the door before he leaned against the doorframe. Rubbing his temple, he attempted to find a sense of himself in all of his nausea.

It took a bit longer than he thought, but out of the blue, a vision of Kakarotto came to him, and he lurched down the hall, planning to find her.

His mind awakened fully while he walked down the halls, everything about the ship new and strange to him. He stopped at one door, and looked inside to see a skeleton laying on a table. Stepping in, he took the old-fashioned scouter that he was used to from the pack, remembering that he had left it in the front pouch before he had died. Placing it on his wrist, he turned it on, and expelled a sigh of relief that there was just enough battery life to show him her general location.

Vegeta didn't even glance at his corpse as he left the room.

From what he could figure from his Mirror Image's memories, Kakarotto had gone into a deep sleep, unable to awaken from anything. His body had been awake the entire time she had been down, however, and after that, his Mirror Image's memory was a little blank. He didn't worry too much about her. After all, Turles had said that he would watch over her if he went to sleep, and-

_Turles! That imbecile drugged this body! What the hell has he done with Kakarotto?_ Snarling, he ripped aside the door to the med bay to check for her, and then, in his haste to exit again, he left a gaping hole in the hallway as he stormed toward the man's energy signature.

"Turles! You fucking bastard!"

As he stopped in front of the civilian exit of the ship however, he frowned when his scouter showed Turles and the others outside of the ship. Had they landed while he had been sleeping?

Growling in annoyance at his hesitation, Vegeta swung the door open only to jerk back in astonishment.

The Saiyajin were back on the planetoid that had been composed of the crumbling rocks, but Vegeta could tell that it was about to go under a rather abrupt transformation for the heat of the planet was starting to skyrocket. The moving rocks and debris that had been pulled in were beginning to encounter more noxious gases, and it was heating up.

The world where he had died had finally begun to really form, and soon the rocks would heat up, and melt into magma. The race that Kakarotto had hired to create it really had been geniuses.

Yet, what really caught his attention was the four other Saiyajin floating just a foot or so above the ground. Grabbing a breathing mask to put on, and closing the air-lock, he flew out to be face-to-face with the others, his eyebrows twitching in rage before he lifted up a glittering fist.

"Release her."

Turles only smirked, and clutched the back of her sleeping head to twist her neck almost unnaturally, "Any closer, Lord Vegeta, and I rip her head off."

_May angels lead you in.  
Hear you me, my friends._

Letting out a frustrated growl, Vegeta's fist glowed even brighter, a shimmering golden hue, "This is unnecessary, Merchant. Put down my lover."

"Ah, so you're you again now, but the answer is still no, naturally," he said. "As the surviving male member of her family, I hold control over her life since she was never granted permission to give herself away. Back then, you had the power to change that, but the rules have changed since you last died. Put down your fist."

With some effort, he forced away the energy, and lowered his head, and hand, "So they have ..."

"Ah good. How convenient that in this lifetime, that power was taken away from our leaders. She was never your lover, but my poor, beloved, knocked-up slut of a niece. If you have any love for our race anymore in that thick skull of yours, then you will back down - tradition has reigned over you, your family, and that of your Original Images and Mirror Image for over five thousand generations. It's everything you are now."

Something in the back of his mind twitched, and he pushed away his Mirror Image trying to break out again, ignoring the plea, **Let me out! Don't listen to him!**

His head began to throb, but even that was shoved aside. He knew that he had to think fast or Kakarotto would be a blackened smear across the planetoid's surface. It would not do to listen to a man who was only in his thirty-fourth year of life. After all, being in existence for over three thousand years had its perks.

"What have you done to her?"

"It was rather odd actually," Paragus said, his face twisting into a sneer, "she just suddenly pitched over, and we couldn't revive her. She must still be exhausted from all the excitement, and changes. That's good news for us though."

He grimaced, "And why is that?"

"We want something, of course. In exchange for her life, we want you to undo the curse. Bring them all - our planet - back! And then disappear." Turles told him, "Take the bitch after that if you like, but never return to Vegeta-sei."

"... This is rather cheap of you." The Lord growled, "On one hand, I have the role of being the Saiyajin's exterminator, but on the other ..."

"But on the other, you have a bitch that you want kept alive despite your duty. She's making out to be such a splendid bartering chip, don't you think?" Turles said to him. "Her and the baby."

His Mirror Image abruptly reared again, screaming out through the body's voice despite Vegeta's attempt to keep him down, "Get the fucking hell out of my head! If you won't do anything, then I will!"

--

Turles laughed as Vegeta fell to his knees, "What's wrong? Can't control that Mirror Image of yours?"

The prince grated out through his fangs, "Shut the hell up, and give Kakarotto back." It was like dangling at a rope's end trying to control the being in his head. Or perhaps more like grasping at the strings at the end of the rope. Already, he could feel the other man scratching madly at the back of his scalp, trying to dig back inside by causing him pain. **You're going to have to do better than that, old man. You only got into my head because I was drugged, but now I'm in my right mind, and you can't do anything against me.**

"You know that you can't do that." The space pirate rebounded from the sudden shift of personalities easily, "For your time, tradition dictates that you can't take her without the permission of the eldest male from her family."

"It's a good thing that I don't give a fuck about tradition anymore then, isn't it?"

The other male blanched before he grabbed her belly; obviously, about to rip out what was growing inside of the sleeping woman.

Kakarotto jerked awake, and she thrashed, giving out a cry of pain. Turles, dropping her in shock, didn't even see the prince dash towards him before he broke his neck with a swift slash to the right with his hand. Kneeling, he picked her up, checking her stomach for what must have been a gory hole, yet there was nothing, and Kakarotto only moaned in agony all the more loudly.

"Ka ... Kakarotto! What's wrong?" He switched his hands to grasp at her shoulders, giving a little shake to catch her attention, "Tell me what's wrong!"

"My ..." she managed, "my ... heart ... Vegeta, my heart ...!"

_On sleepless roads the sleepless go.  
May angels lead you in._

His own heart clenched up in pain, "What? Kakarotto, what's wrong? What happened?" She didn't answer for she had fallen back into unconsciousness.

"The Merchant is dead now," Vegeta's head jolted upward to snarl at Paragus, "what great fortune that I now know my part, but to know that I must die next ...! Ept Vegeta!" He clung tighter to her, bringing her to his chest in protection, but he knew that he could not safeguard her from whatever was occurring to her inside. "I will make the rest of your short life as miserable as I can! It shall be my parting gift to you for all of the horrible things you have done to me in the past! The humiliations, and agonies that you and your family have afflicted! May my son kill me as swiftly as he has done in the past, and may your death be horrendous!"

He did not see the symbology of Paragus taking off his golden wristband and breaking it, but he did see and feel Brolli's power crash out after he did it. The resulting bang was so great that Paragus - who had been right beside him - was thrust aside, and Vegeta heard his neck snap in the whiplash.

"This ... is not what I had before ..." Brolli seemed to sigh, "but it will be enough ..." His eyes, penetrating through Vegeta, began to glow green, "My rage will be enough!"

The Saiyajin's power thrummed before he seemed to burst apart in rays of golden light. What was left behind was a monster of a man, every single muscle quivering with power. Insane glee spread into his eyes, causing the much smaller man to choke back a curse, for the crazed insanity that he saw in them was never a good sign in a Saiyajin.

Vegeta didn't waste time - he brought Kakarotto up into his arms, and dashed toward the ship with her. He would kill without a second thought as he had done so many times before with Paragus.

Shutting up the civilian door, he then took off his and her mask, and opened the air-lock before he went through with her and shut the door again. The being that had taken control only moments before raged again, **You must relinquish control! This is not allowed!**

**Did this happen to you? Were you not in control? I bet that monster out there slaughtered you!**

The being reached into his head, and seemed to be trying to twist out his eyeballs in order to gain control, **No, I killed him, but at a heavy price. He may have been stopped, but ... I left Kakarotto behind ...**

**I don't like your methods,** he cut off the connection, and ran down the halls before he just thought it a waste. Hearing Brolli rip apart the metal walls, Vegeta ascended to his Super Saiyajin form before he crashed up into the ceiling, breaking through quickly so that he could reach the control room faster. Vegeta hoped that the other Saiyajin would not catch on to what he was attempting.

The beautiful thing about the randomly pieced together ship was that it could break pieces of itself away, using massive built-in air-locks to keep the occupants safe while casting aside the rest. He just had to-

_May angels lead you in.  
May angels lead you in._

"Kguh!" Vegeta lurched forward before he collapsed to his knees, the hit jarring him enough that the female Saiyajin fell into a heap in front of him. Tweaking erratically, he felt his eyes slide down to stare at the pipe sticking out of his gut.

Laughter from behind himself caused Vegeta to burn in anger. The pain had not yet hit him, so he quickly twisted around, and, taking up a shard of metal, he aimed for Brolli's eyes. It was caught effortlessly in Brolli's opposite hand, but before the other Super Saiyajin could blink, Vegeta punched him in the face after tossing shards of metal at his face.

The much smaller pieces merely punctured his skin, yet the most damaging blow of it was that several shards pierced through his eyelids to the delicate eye tissue below. Brolli released Vegeta's wrist to clutch to his face, and he howled in torment. The prince fell to his side, and, taking the time to breathe, he hacked out blood that had welled up from inside of himself, gripping the broken pipe in his abdomen.

After that, the pain started to spread through him, but he managed to drag himself to Kakarotto, and picked her up, pressing her close. Behind him, one of Brolli's arms swung about in search of the two, yet his other hand was held over his damaged eyes while puss oozed out through his fingers. He had been effectively blinded.

Knowing that extracting the pipe would only open up his wounds and make him lose blood faster, Vegeta didn't touch it.

With greater effort than he had first thought, Vegeta got to his feet with the woman in his arms before bursting up through the ceilings again, pushing back the torrent of agony his actions brought to him. A good couple of floors up, he dropped out of his Super Saiyajin form involuntarily, and slumped to his knees, coughing up more blood, which ended up on Kakarotto's shirt. Making himself take in deep breaths, he nuzzled into her bosom before he looked up at her wearily, still able to hear the screams below, "Two more floors to go ... do you think I can do it ... Kakarotto?"

She didn't answer, but he stumbled up onto his feet again before his energy flared bravely, and he shot up the last few floors.

At last, when he got to the control room, his knees buckled right in front of the command center. He tried to suck in several breaths that only turned into red-colored pants. Wiping away the blood on his lips with a sleeve, he reached up to press in commands, but his hands were too jerky, so he had to push one button at a time with a quaking finger. Every now and then, he would vomit up blood, and soon there was a small pool collecting from his mouth and the two wounds.

Vegeta checked the time it would take for the ship to reach Earth, and then took a reading of the amount of breathable air left inside. As both readings sank in, he remembered what the being that had taken over his mind had said.

Solidifying his resolve, and pressing in the last button to initiate his orders, he looked down at the sleeping Saiyajin in his lap. Her hair - which had always seemed to shine a blue-gray color - was drenched in his blood, and a few specks from his coughs had splattered over her cheek. One vermillion drop had landed on her full bottom lip.

He hesitated, groaning, and Vegeta toppled to the floor beside her. Smearing the blood around them as he curled up to her, he clasped at the metal pipe.

Keeping his eyes concentrated on Kakarotto, he began to pull it out.

Together, they would not make it back to Earth in time before they suffocated. With the floors below them ruined, and the hallway beyond the control room still exposed to outer space, he would not be able to put either himself or Kakarotto into a regen-tank. They would be trapped in the control room until the ship reached Earth, but there would be just enough emergency rations to last a pregnant Saiyajin through the weeks if she was careful.

She stirred, and then he hissed, bringing her face to his chest so that he could cover up her eyes. Kakarotto was still for a few moments before she struggled, groaning in pain, "No ... let me ... go ..."

"Kakarotto, no ..." gritting his fangs, he gave a final tug, and freed the pipe. Swallowing a cough of blood, he whispered hoarsely into her hair, his throat dry, "I don't want ... don't want you to see ..."

"Vegeta ...? See what ...?" After a moment, she froze, and then started to pant, "No ... no, Vegeta ... Vegeta, I can smell blood ...!" Her hands fisted into his wet, sticky shirt, and then she began to sob. The strange action from her brought tears to his own eyes, and he dropped the pipe to hug her closer even as more hot blood seeped from his puncture wound.

"There's food in the cabinets below the controls," he said after taking a deep inhalation. "Don't play with the controls ... and you'll be on Earth in four days."

"Vegeta," she started, and soon it became a mantra, repeating it over and over as if that would save him. Dislodging her hands, she instead clutched at his back, and his breath hitched painfully, "Vegeta, I'm pregnant ... please ..."

Clenching his eyes shut tight, he shook her shoulders weakly, "Then. Do. Not. Die."


	17. Selfish Man

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Seventeen: Selfish Man

--

Bulma closed her eyes again - oddly enough, it actually helped to shut out the horror she had felt. She did not see the dead body of her best friend covered in the blood of the prince there when she shut her eyes.

She had confirmed them both dead at least fifteen times before it had begun to sink in. Gokuu was dead and Vegeta with her. Yamucha had been the one to take them inside, and he had been the one to spot the pipe that must have been Vegeta's downfall. As that was what her father had discovered had happened to him, soon describing a gory puncture wound that had gone straight through the prince from behind.

She listened as her father suggested a theory while he carefully cleaned Gokuu's body - all of them too nervous to send the aliens to an actual morgue, "He must have been attacked at the console by something from behind. The pipe hadn't been broken, so there were no sharp edges on it. What strength they must have had to do that to him - especially with such a blunt weapon."

"No," Yamucha said, "there was a trail of blood right behind them both. They must have gone in wounded together."

"Actually, Vegeta was the only one wounded."

Looking up, Yamucha blinked in disbelief, "What? But ... then what happened to Gokuu-chan?"

"Don't know yet. All I know is that so far, I haven't found any reason to believe that she had died from either suffocation, or blood loss." He paused to briefly check over her body, white latex gloves on as he pressed gently down on the areas where her clothes covered her, "Hm, I didn't feel anything _too_ abnormal either." The doctor sucked in a puff from the cigarette in his mouth before he took it out to blow out smoke slowly, and then put it back in. Scratching at his head in confusion, he then patted the head of the black cat on his shoulder before placing his hands on her lower abdomen, "This area feels a little strange though."

"What do you mean?"

"I just felt her entire body, and Vegeta's pretty much too. They're both so hard from their muscles that it's easy to feel something odd like a wound or such."

Bulma dared to fully face them, and frowned at her father's hands before she said, "So what's wrong with it?"

"It's soft."

She blinked a few times, letting that sink in even as she couldn't rip her eyes from her oldest friend, "... Is she bruised? Maybe it was internal bleeding."

Dr. Briefs retrieved another clean wash cloth, and pulled the hem of her shirt to just below her breasts so that she was modestly covered, and wiped down her stomach, "Nothing, Bulma. I can still see obvious muscles, but this is still too soft for someone like her." Glancing up at her and Yamucha, he then asked, "Have you two ever touched her stomach before? Maybe her stomach has always been a bit softer - like a female trait of the Saiyajin."

"Yeah," Yamucha said, "but it's always been hard as a rock."

"Mmn, I'd call this as hard as a dry sponge," the doctor said, and started puffing his cigarette again.

"We should get some machines out to do some testing then," Bulma whispered. "I want to know what happened to her - to them."

--

What had happened had been a severe case of the heart epidemic that had hit Earth hard in the last year. From what they could tell, Vegeta had been injured before entering the room, and pressed in the commands, all the while carrying Gokuu who must have been having her heart attacked by the virus. He had pushed in the buttons, and pulled out the pipe sometime around that area before laying down to die with Gokuu.

Kuririn broke down, and cried when he heard the news while Bulma finally joined in with him. The two clutched one another's arms for support. For Tenshinhan and Chaotzu, the small emperor sniffled, and wiped his eyes while the taller man tried to comfort him. Piccolo's nostrils flared before he turned away, facing the window to peer outside.

"I imagine that you could do nothing for the infant, of course," he said after a while, glancing back at them.

They all startled badly for they had nearly forgotten about the Namekjin, and Bulma gaped at him, "But I ... I didn't tell you about the baby."

"Baby?" Tenshinhan lifted up his head, "You mean that she ... with _him_ ...?"

He nodded, "I could hear the baby's heartbeat for nearly three months before they left. It was driving me insane."

"But - what? Three months? When we were doing scans and found the baby, it was only in its seventh week of development, and it takes weeks for hearts to even start pulsing during pregnancy."

"For humans, I suppose that's true," Piccolo shrugged, "but Vegeta and Son are full-blooded Saiyajin. Who knows how their bodies really work. Who knows what the Saiyajin are really like at all."

--

Vegeta frowned up at the enormous ogre sitting at his desk, "To Hell again, I presume."

The red bearded ogre nodded to him, not even glancing down at him, "Have a pleasant second trip down, Vegeta." He paused for a few moments before he remembered something, and shouted after Vegeta's back, "Wait, Vegeta! I have a gift for you."

"A gift? What for?" He stopped, and turned, intrigued by the strange offer.

"For the last few actions of your life, I think you at least deserve to see her one last time."

His jaw nearly dropped before it became firm again, "How long will you let me see her then?"

"Mm ..." he flipped through a few pages of another book on his desk, and then nodded at him, "Considering the rest of your rather colorful record, you have ten minutes."

After a moment, Vegeta shook his head in wonderment before he glared at the large god, "That's no gift for the likes of me. It will be torture."

"I can't lengthen the time limit for any-"

"I'm not talking about the damned time limit!" He raged before he straightened, and then he marched straight to Hell.

Enma's voice rumbled across the room as he turned back to his work, "I know you weren't."

--

Once Vegeta stepped inside, he was assaulted by several other ogres who scowled at him, one of them saying, "Weren't you here before?"

"Yeah, I've seen that one. Been a while though."

"Caused all sorts of ruckuses, he did," said a green one, and the pink and yellow ogres nodded in agreement.

Pink claimed, "He was only here an hour or two. What god awful noises he made too."

The green ogre snickered, "Aw, ya'll look at 'im, he looks like some house cat now. Not going to cause no more trouble, so it looks."

"Eh heh, ah ..." the yellow ogre frowned suddenly, and bent nearly in half as he leaned over to take a closer look at something, "What's that he got there? He's even got a tail like some house cat. Don't remember a tail."

"Hey ..." Green picked at his ear, "don't we do something with cat tails like those?"

"I'm not a cat," Vegeta sneered, having had enough with the slack-jawed employees of Backwater Hell. "I'm mostly referred to as an ape."

"Ape, huh ..." Pink snapped his fingers then, "Oh, yeah! It's one of them Saiyajin guys, you guys."

"Aw, darn, I wanted to play with 'im."

Taking that in with a calculated frown and a glance between the three, Vegeta asked, "So what's that mean if you guys can't play?"

"Gotta take you to that afterlife you guys got."

His eyes narrowed before memories set in slowly - memories from a life before imprisonment by Freeza, and how, for a few short years afterward, he had dreamed of being able to return to Vegeta-sei in death, "I see ..." When one of them stepped toward him, he abruptly remembered something, "But wait, there's something I need to know."

"Huh? What is it?"

"If a Saiyajin who's done good all their life dies, and goes to Heaven, can you still take them to Ept Pinto'Per'End?"

Yellow scratched his arm almost nonchalantly, "Heaven ain't under our jurisdiction. Won't be switching shift to go up there for the next two hundred and fifty-two years."

Taking a deep breath - an empty one for he was dead - Vegeta nodded, "... When you do go up there, could you send such a Saiyajin down to Ept Pinto'Per'End?"

They looked at each other before Pink took out a heavy notepad from his back pocket, "Never heard of a Saiyajin that went to Heaven, but I can ask around at least when I get up there. What's his name?"

"It's a woman, and her name is Kakarotto ... she might respond to Son Gokuu though."

Pink nodded absently as he jotted it down, "Anything else?"

"... Yeah ... our child might be with her." He shrugged, "I wouldn't know what she would name it though."

He grinned, and gave Vegeta a thumb's up, "Got it. The Saiyajin named Son Gokuu or Kakarotto with child."

Green grunted, and crossed his arms, "We better get you over to your afterlife then so you can wait, yeah? Can't just leave you out in Hell if you don't really belong. Been a while since I've seen a Saiyajin before though. Follow me, will ya." With that, he turned around to stalk over toward a tree in the distance, and Vegeta set after him, frowning ahead at nothing as he kept his arms crossed.

He could wait nearly three centuries to see her again; Vegeta could be patient. He just had to bide his time, and perhaps hone his body - once it was returned to him for his new life in Ept Pinto'Per'End. It would not do to waste away into nothing while she was likely going to grow stronger as well.

"All right, you just need to stand there on that rock, okay?"

Blinking, he looked over at the stone that the ogre was pointing at before he stepped on it, and then crossed his arms over his chest, "Now what?"

"Hold your britches, I'm looking ..." Green muttered to himself, rifling through bushes before he seemed to grasp something, and then yanked hard.

All Vegeta could tell was that it was a lever, but that was all for then the rock he was standing on disappeared, and the last Prince of the Saiyajin race was sucked down into the resulting hole.

Vegeta didn't exactly wake up, but it felt like it for a moment - he felt rather refreshed and as if he had slept for weeks. He padded his newly returned body down, sitting up slowly as he got used to the gravity again. Looking around his surrounding landscape, Vegeta felt his eyes concentrate on the sand below him, suddenly confused. He gathered up a handful before he let the crimson grains slip out of his hands and back onto the ground. After a few minutes, he rose to gape at the rosy-hued horizon.

Ept Pinto'Per'End was the Saiyajin's afterlife - a very strange afterlife. For every year, another section was added to Ept Pinto'Per'End from Vegeta-sei. Which mean in not so many words that Ept Pinto'Per'End was like a pizza in spherical form. As the planet changed, so each newly added section was changed.

Once Vegeta-sei had been destroyed, Nappa had muttered about how the years would add on slices of outer space instead of their precious planet, yet that was not the case - or so it seemed. Walking around, he began to realize what must have happened, and his crossed arms clenched around himself instead before he shut his eyes with a heavy sigh. Surely, Kakarotto had must have done something about the reincarnation of their planet.

_The silly little thing must have wished it back while I was away ..._

He stood there a while, taking in the oddly calm scenery, and then looked over at the figures approaching. When they got closer, Vegeta began to realize who they were, and he calmly braced himself for what might become a nasty fight. The rest of the dead Eight landed in front of him, and the groups sized each other up before one spoke.

Turles nodded to him in an awkward greeting before looking around, "No Kakarotto then?"

"No ... are you-?"

"Myself? Yeah," he said, and then laughed with no humor as he looked over at a Saiyajin that looked almost exactly like Turles. In fact, Vegeta had thought he had been Turles before he had seen the lighter skin and a crossed scar across his cheek. "How does it feel to die like you want to anyway?"

The other man was silent before he shrugged, "The dying itself sucks, but I think it's nice when you can choose your own death."

"What was it like to die screaming in pain the whole way through?" Paragus smirked, his missing eye back where it should have been, and both glinted in sadistic glee toward the prince.

Vegeta shrugged, "I don't know, I was about to ask your son that."

"It sucked," and Brolli became quiet until he seemed to remember something, his brow twitching, "She survived?"

"Her and the baby. She's probably back on Earth by now." Vegeta began stretching his arms out then, cracking his neck, and rolling his shoulders, "They can return my body to me, but they can't get rid of the aches from standing in that fucking line for so long. Typical."

"Well," the man that looked like Turles began to say after chuckling, "I think I'm heading back down a couple hundred Circa. Some of the women there dress in just skirts with their breasts bared."

Nappa sneered, "Don't you have any shame, Captain Bardock?"

The newly named Bardock snorted, and waved him off, "Pfff! Fuck you. I'm dead, so what's it matter? Besides, there's good grog too. Anybody going to follow?"

"I'm in," Turles said after a moment, and the two abruptly grinned at each other as if sharing some secret before they both dashed toward the horizon. Vegeta could see the enormous Gateway waiting there for them.

"Aren't you going to follow your father and uncle?" The memory of some form of himself calling them twins came to him, so Vegeta asked this of Radittsu, and the longhaired Saiyajin shook his head.

"Nah, besides, the further back you go, the more skin they show."

He stared at the man before he chuckled, and shook his head, keeping to himself the memories of finding Kakarotto walking around completely naked. Of course, the prince had seen it as a rather delicious offering, but, a month or so ago, she had told Vegeta that she just liked to be nude sometimes. That hadn't stopped his libido, naturally.

"Care to join me?"

"I don't think so," he said after some thought, "I'd rather not be tempted."

"... I should deck you for this, you know."

Vegeta smirked, no longer looking at Radittsu, but toward the Gateway, "Probably. Why don't you try?"

"Because you'll beat me worse."

"Again, probably."

"So what are you going to do now, Vegeta?"

"I'll train, I think ..." he looked around the barren landscape before he shrugged, "I guess I'll stay here for now. It's going to stay nice and quiet until word gets out that the planet is back."

"You know," Radittsu said suddenly, "it's weird how the scriptures would say one thing when in truth, it was something else."

"What do you mean?"

Radittsu shrugged, and then glanced at the Gateway, both Turles and Bardock long gone, "Well ... like in the scriptures about us. Take the Fourth for example. He was supposed to have had no regard for family whatsoever, right? But Turles never raised a hand wrong to me except in training sessions. Never sneered at me except in jest ..."

After a moment, Vegeta answered him, "Then it's safe to say that the scriptures ... those that wrote the scriptures lied."

"... But Vegeta-sei was destroyed anyway."

"Yes," he said, "of that they told the truth, but the rest of it ... what they didn't like they must have changed so they could be more proud about the downfall of the Saiyajin race."

Nappa surged forward as if angry, "I would _never_ betray you, Vegeta! What would make you think that I'd do such a thing?"

"The reason I killed you, Nappa, was not for any such silly thing as deception," he said after remembering the conditions of the Third. "You had a broken back - I myself barely survived the trip back to one of Freeza's planets. What makes you think you'd have fared any better? That was a mercy killing."

The formerly one-eyed Saiyajin snarled, "So what do you call having my son assassinated as an infant? Your father had assassins try to kill him when he was born with a ten thousand power level! King Vegeta could have used him against Freeza when he was of age! What do you call that? That's no mercy killing - it's sick."

Without missing a beat, Vegeta snapped his fangs, "It was a mercy killing for the entire race - an attempt to save us. If Freeza hadn't blown up the planet, what do you think he would have done with a young boy with such a power level? The same thing he did with me! Brolli would have immediately been drafted into the army where Freeza would have used his power at his own leisure. Freeza wouldn't have let my father have the chance to use that power."

Paragus gaped before he backed down - his fangs gritting together almost painful sounding. The prince glanced up at Brolli to see if he had anything smart to say as well, but was surprised to find the behemoth gone. Frowning at where the Saiyajin had been, Vegeta then looked around only to see nothing but himself, Radittsu, Nappa, Paragus, and red sand.

"Heh, I can assume that what they said of Paragus and Brolli was correct," Radittsu said, "but I don't think they told the truth about my dad and Turles."

He smirked wryly at the other Saiyajin, still wary of the missing man, "Would _you_ want the populace to know that two of the Saiyajin that helped destroy our race were lecherous, family-loving, booze-guzzling space pirates with face-splitting grins?"

"... I suppose not," he said with a smile. "... And I have no jealousy, huh?"

"Yes ... I think they spoke the truth with you. I have vague snatches of memories of ... back then."

The others - sans Paragus - nodded their heads in understanding, while the latter just glowered at Vegeta before he stalked away.

"Radittsu," he murmured when Paragus was out of hearing range, "what do you think 'everything' means?"

"... I suppose you're talking about Kakarotto?" When he nodded, the longhaired man shrugged, "How should I know?"

Vegeta thumbed his bottom lip thoughtfully, "Is it referring to her as she is now, or the Saiyajin she was before she bumped her head? ... And if it _is_ the Kakarotto we know now, then who ...?"

"Hey, Vegeta."

"Hn?"

Radittsu tossed him a recording device that Vegeta caught, and they looked at each other until the taller Saiyajin male shuffled away uneasily, "Mystics screamed whenever I played that around them. Maybe there is something weird about the Saiyajin that Kakarotto would have been if she hadn't bumped her head."

The male frowned at the recording device for a bit, "What is it?"

"When I was younger, I heard that a mystic fled in terror at the sight of an infant. When I went to check this infant out, I found it in the maternal ward, and my new sister was laying next to him.

"Kakarotto" - here he smiled a little fondly - "was wailing loud enough to disturb the dead themselves. I bet even the gods could hear her screams. Their power levels were listed like usual beside their names. Kakarotto's said two, and the other - the one she was laying beside - said ten thousand. My immediate thought was that this child was what made them scream and gnash their fangs. Kakarotto ... was nothing in my eyes at that moment, and yet, as she cried, I noticed that the other babe was whimpering from her loud mouth.

"I heard some doctors joking behind me that he would want to find the bitch that made even him cry as an infant - maybe make her his concubine, or even honor her as his mate." Radittsu glanced at him as if to make sure Vegeta was still listening to the tale, "I just thought it was cool that someone like that could be born. I took out that recorder, and used it on him - hoping to catch a few whimpering sounds out of him amidst Kakarotto's din. I never did. When I was playing it in a bar later to see if I could hear him, there were mystics there. All of them tried to rip off their own ears as they fled."

--

"Gokuu, this is one of my older students," King Kai gestured to the tall, buff blonde. "He's from Earth too. In fact, many heroes of Earth are actually him!"

She smiled brightly up at him before bowing politely, "Hi! I'm Son Gokuu!"

"My name is Olibu. It's a pleasure," the man said, his arms across his chest as he smiled warmly at the much smaller form of the woman.

"Olibu? Would you show her around? You know this place best, and I'm sure Gokuu would want to know everything about it before she starts up her training regimen," King Kai waved at them, "I got to bread home, and loaf around ... get it? Bread! Loaf?" With that, the kai peeled into raucous laughter until the two's stares made him clear his throat and cough hard, "Yes! Well! I'll be busy, so I need to catch the next plane out of here. It was nice seeing you again, Gokuu!"

Chuckling, the large man smiled at her again, "Shall we then? I could help you get started if you want."

"Okay, sounds like fun!"

Suddenly her eyes seemed to brighten, but there had been something dark about them before. Olibu hadn't even noticed it until it had been hidden behind that grin, and he became slightly wary as he showed her the vast fields and sparse buildings around them. When he was nearly done, Olibu could no longer hold it in, and he took a blind swing at what might have been wrong, hoping that she had not somehow lied her way into the afterlife for brave, virtuous warriors, "Not that I want to open old wounds, but just how did you die? I don't believe that King Kai told me."

Gokuu blinked up at him a few times before another smile developed on her lips, "Some heart disease. Doesn't that suck? I didn't even get to fight anyone super strong."

Olibu relaxed, laughing softly, "Oh, I see now. Perhaps, we should find you a sparring partner so you can feel better about it."

"Why not you?"

He shook his head, and tried not to sound condescending as he explained, "I'm too strong for you right now. Maybe after a few hundred years, I'll try you on."

"The same goes to you, Olibu!"

The two warriors' heads turned at the new voice, and Olibu saw Paikuhan before he looked down to see West Kai, "You still think I can't take on your star pupil, huh?"

"That's right you can't! ... This isn't as fun when I'm not shouting at North Kai. Where'd he go?"

"Huh? North?" Gokuu poked at Olibu's shoulder, and he nodded.

"Yes," Olibu told her, "there are four quadrants that these kai reign over. We're from the Northern Quadrant; this is West Kai."

West Kai burst out, "Hey, stop flirting! Where did North Kai go? I heard he was here! One of his fighters died, and he was actually escorting them here himself! That's unprecedented!"

"King Kai went home. Something about bread," Gokuu said, and Olibu stared at her, wondering if she even knew that the North Kai had been telling a terrible joke again.

"Hmph! Well, since he's not here, and since Olibu isn't a challenge, I'll go look for the new challenger so Paikuhan can lord his superiority once again over North Kai's pitiful warriors!"

Immediately, though Olibu tried to shush her, Gokuu rose her hand to catch their attention, and she smiled, "That would be me."

The purple kai's eyes widened before he pouted, "Paikuhan won't even give her time to blink before she's down for the count - that's no fun."

"Yes," Paikuhan finally spoke, "it's unsportsmanlike."

Olibu would have relaxed, but this Son Gokuu didn't let up - she seemed to be itching for a fight of all things! "Don't worry; I won't beat you too badly."

The green alien jerked in shock before the ever-permanent frown that Olibu was familiar with twitched, "I doubt you could do much. Besides, I don't want to embarrass you no matter what West Kai says. Maybe in three thousand years. Or when you're faster than the speed of light. You'd have a chance by then."

"You mean like this?" She abruptly held up Paikuhan's belt, and Olibu gaped at her while Paikuhan grabbed his loose pants to keep them up securely. "Come on. Pretty please, fight me. Olibu keeps saying I can't fight anyone just yet, and now you guys are saying the same thing, but you can't know that unless I show my stuff."

"... Son Gokuu," Olibu stepped up, "I would like to test your meddle."

--


	18. Tears in Heaven

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Eighteen: Tears in Heaven

--

Humming to herself, Gokuu marched toward the mountains, and tried to keep her tune steady and on the right key. Beside her walked Olibu, and she smiled often at him. The tall man cleared his throat almost every time she did so - a confusing act for her because she kept expecting him to try to talk after he did it. Finally, when she smiled at him and Olibu cleared his throat once more, she stopped humming and walking.

"Are you okay? You sound like you have a sore throat."

His eyes widened before she saw his cheeks turn pink slightly, "I'm fine, Gokuu, really."

"Oh, then did you want to talk to me about something ...? I've been practicing doing this song right for a while, so if you want me to stop-"

"The song is fine," he said with a wide grin, "I was just thinking that ... Gokuu, you're not really like other girls. You're even different from the female warriors here." As she frowned, he shook his head, "I don't mean that in a bad way. You're ... refreshing, Gokuu. It's nice that I can talk to you like one warrior to another, and not have to worry about getting you offended like some women here that I know. That's something that I really like about you ..."

She scratched the back of her neck, and cocked her head to the side, "Oh."

"... I like being around you."

Beaming at the insight, she told him, "I like being with you too."

"You ... do?" He murmured before he smiled even wider, and touched her cheek gently.

His fingertips tickled her softly, and so she giggled, lightly batting his hand away, "Course, I do. You're a good friend."

He went still before he gently placed his hand on her shoulder, "I was hoping to be more than just friends, Gokuu."

"More than ...?" Frowning, she tilted her head to the other side, "What's that mean? How can people become anything more than friends?" She smiled, "What's _better_ than being friends?"

His eyes widened in disbelief until his blonde brow reached his hairline, "... I - I don't mean to be rude, but, Gokuu-chan, are you a virgin?"

"A what?"

Clearing his throat, he seemed to become more florid before he took her hand, "Perhaps I should teach you what it is to be a woman."

--

It didn't happen for another couple of months, but eventually her balance became skewed. Gokuu had been aiming at Paikuhan's face when it really seemed to hit her, and she toppled to the side only to fall on her rump with a soft cry. Her opponent instantly was upon her, and she had to roll away to avoid being hit, jumping to her feet with none of her usual grace before she threw several energy blasts into his face.

The delaying tactic worked for all of a few moments before Paikuhan lurched toward her, and head butted the Saiyajin. She wobbled back a few steps before she landed on her behind again. Gokuu held her dizzy head, breathing in through her nose, and then exhaling out via her mouth.

Before he seemed properly able to gloat, Paikuhan's brow creased in concern, "Gokuu? What is it?"

"Just a little woozy," she said, and then grinned at him. "Weird, huh? You pack quite a wallop with that head of yours." Smirking, he offered her a hand, which she took so that she could stand up. Eyes wide, Gokuu abruptly stumbled before she could catch herself, "Whoa!"

"I hit you harder than I thought if you're this bad."

"It's not bad at all," she said.

"Gokuu," Olibu said from the sidelines, "you just tripped over your own feet. You've been doing it a lot too."

Becoming unsure, she looked over at the confused looking Paikuhan to the concerned Olibu. The latter asked, "Are you sure it's okay for you to be eating? You _are_ dead. There's never been a hungry dead man before ... or a hungry dead woman."

"But I get _so_ hungry," she told them.

"It's just a habit you need to get out of," Paikuhan explained. "There's no reason for you to eat anymore. It's unnatural for someone who's dead to eat."

Olibu nodded, "I understand you can't help but try to breathe right now, but that's normal. You'll stop that after a few thousand years. I still do it sometimes myself, but ... eating?"

She managed to shrug sheepishly before she sighed, and relented, "Maybe I'll have one of those nurses check on me ... I'll just have to ask for no needles again."

"All right," Olibu nodded, and then got into the ring before he waved to her. "We'll see you soon, Gokuu."

When Paikuhan raised his hand in a short farewell, Gokuu waved back as she teleported to the infirmary. She ended up beside Elra, one of the nurses that treated her often, "Hi!"

"Hello, sweet cakes," Elra murmured cheerfully as she wrapped a broken leg of some yellow and pink alien. "How's my favorite patient? What'd you break this time?"

"I don't know. Olibu says I need a check-up."

"Ooh?" Smiling, she turned around, and poked at her shoulder, "That sweet, big man is worried about you, is he?"

"Yeah, him and Paikuhan."

"Oh, that green guy? Well, if you don't mind having two, then I don't mind," she winked, and finished wrapping the alien's leg before stamping a heart sticker on the knee of the bandage, "You keep off that leg, you hear?" When he was gone, the nurse grinned almost evilly at Gokuu, "So-"

"No needles," she said hurriedly, and her friend blinked before laughing shortly.

"Oh ho ho! Gokuu-chan, I know better than to stick something in you that doesn't belong," Elra winked again, making Gokuu's head cock to the side, and she wondered if the other woman had something in her eye. "So what's up, babe?"

Shrugging, she started, "I've been getting dizzy recently, and I can't seem to keep steady on my own feet because of it. Olibu and Paikuhan think it might be because I still eat."

"And I keep telling you, Gokuu, it's perfectly natural. Even in death, Saiyajin eat like starving packs of delmappi. I know. I looked it up."

She nodded, "Well, can you find out what _is_ wrong? I want to get back to training."

"Sure, babe, lay down, and I'll take a gander at you."

About a half hour later when Gokuu had been thoroughly checked over, Elra began to tap her foot in annoyance, "I can't find anything wrong with you. Your temperature is a bit high, and you've gained a few kilograms, but, since you've been adding on so many muscles, that's normal."

"... Wait."

Pursing her lips, the nurse put her hands on her hips as she waited, "Yeah?"

Gokuu hovered her hand over her stomach, "I just remembered. I've been trying to build muscle mass for my abs, but it just keeps getting softer and softer. You don't think that weight is fat, do you?"

Violet eyes bugged out before she began tapping her foot even faster as she thought, "Well, how much do you usually eat?"

"I've been eating a bit more than usual, but my stomach was soft before that ... I mean, I just can't stop eating. I used to be able to restrain myself, but now whenever I see food, I pop it right into my mouth - even if I don't like it," Gokuu exclaimed while the nurse chewed in confusion on her lip.

"I see ... Gokuu-chan, I'm going to call someone in from heaven. A gynecologist, okay? They won't be using any kind of needles, I promise." Scratching her head, Elra then sighed heavily, and shrugged, "I'm pulling at loose ends here, but if you guys are allowed to eat even in death ... well, you can do all sorts of other stuff too, I bet."

"What do you mean?"

"Just wait until the gynecologist gets here, Gokuu."

--

The alien woman doctor that had come in was big, loud, and had three huge pairs of lips to match with both of her assets. After some rather strange tests - but thankfully no needles - the jelly?-cologist grinned with all three mouths, and said, "My! You've got one healthy baby, Son-san."

Gokuu was too shocked for even her jaw to drop, "Huh?"

"Your baby, dear. You're just in the middle of your second quarter." She glanced into some kind of handbook before looking at Gokuu and her tail, "You _are_ a Saiyajin, correct?"

Swallowing nothing, she nodded, and one hand wandered to her belly to clutch there gently, "Yes."

"Good, good, didn't want to offend," the large alien said, two of her tentacles shutting the book while several others gently prodded her sides. Gokuu removed her hand shakily so she could work, "From what I can tell, you're in your twenty-sixth week. You should be feeling a bit muddle-headed and dizzy for a while, so don't worry too much about that. It'll pass in a month or three."

_Three? ... Muddle-what?_ Gokuu thought meekly, her hand returning to her lower abdomen when the alien pulled off her four appendages. _Twenty-six ..._ She attempted to do some math after that, to figure out just how far along she was, but all she could recall from her talks with Bulma had been a bunch of nines and thirty-sixes and puke and food cravings.

Maybe something about harmonicas ...?

The doctor smiled - at least it looked like a smile with all of those sharp incisors - "Oh, you won't be able to feel the baby for another five months, dear. Saiyajin women don't show until near the end of their third quarter. It's a sort of defense mechanism so rival males don't try to kill the baby before the female can give birth."

_Rival what? Quarters? What about that 'trim-whatever' thing?_ Holding her head with her other hand, Gokuu blinked at her until she whispered, finally making some kind of sense out of all the thoughts in her head, "But I'm dead ... and my baby ...?"

She shrugged, "Doesn't change the fact that you're pregnant, dear. Your little bundle of joy will be arriving within the next year - give or take a month."

"A year? Bulma said babies took ..." she paused, trying to remember before she finally recalled it, "They take nine months."

"Not for your species, Son-san. Saiyajin have a seventeen month long gestation period." Gokuu's jaw dropped, but the alien didn't seem to notice, "You've already gone through six months of that, and right now your baby is going to do a lot of growing. Keep eating what you can, Son-san. I suggest you stock up on meat and vegetables. They do wonders for little Saiyajin miracles."

Nodding, she was given a few more instructions - and an appointment to come see another doctor again in another month - before she wandered out of the infirmary, not even hearing her nurse friend shout.

Elra finally caught up with her, and planted herself firmly in front of Gokuu, "Hey, what's wrong? You okay?"

"I'm pregnant. Is that okay?"

The alien relaxed before she smirked, a put her hands on her hips, "Of course! Olibu's going to be ecstatic!"

"Huh? Why?"

"Hm? Oh, Gokuu-chan, you didn't plan it, huh?" She tapped her foot a few time before she grinned, "Just break it to him easy, okay? Believe me, he'll accept the baby. It's his after all."

"No, it's not," she said, looking up at her shocked face. "Elra ... I died when I was pregnant. I think the baby ... came with me when I died."

Going still, Elra stared at her with bugging eyes before she seemed to force herself to relax, "Oh, I see ..." She cleared her throat, "Well, then! You need to break it to Olibu _very_ slowly if that's the case." Patting her shoulder, she leaned in to kiss Gokuu's cheek, "Good luck, babe."

Nodding, Gokuu said her good-byes, and headed toward the dojo that she, Olibu, and Paikuhan had been training in that day. They took one look at her, and dropped down from the air to talk to her.

"That took longer than I thought. What's wrong?"

It took her a while, but she smiled, "There's nothing wrong with a baby."

"... Dead people don't have babies, Gokuu," Olibu told her, his eyes seeming to be denying something.

Gokuu shrugged, "I don't know what to tell you then. This lady doctor came in, and did tests, and then said I have a baby on the way." She looked down at her stomach, the idea still trying to sink in, "I have a year to go."

The green alien watched her face before he nodded, and his hand lifted up a bit as if expecting something, "Can you feel it move yet?"

Smiling, she shook her head, "No. I think it's too little for that right now."

"If you don't mind me asking," Olibu said, "who's the father? I mean ... how does a dead woman get pregnant?"

"Elra thinks that since I can eat, I can do other stuff that living people can do too."

"Son-chan," he repeated himself, "who is the father?"

The smile didn't exactly die, but her shaking hands fisted into her shirt, half of the light went out in her eyes, and tears sprouted, "... He's dead too."

Olibu startled, and stood up straighter, exhuming confusion and what seemed like protection, "... Is he here?"

She shook her head, and tried to calm her hands, wiping the tears away, "No. No, he's not."

"He's in the main part of Heaven then?" Paikuhan put in when Olibu crossed his arms, facing away, and the men stiffened when she denied this as well. Paikuhan licked his lips, staring at her before he found his voice again, "Was he reborn again?"

"No ..." Gokuu bit her tongue, "I hope not ... if he was, then I really won't be able to tell him about the baby. He won't know me ... but I can't find his energy signal in Hell, so ..." She glanced up at them, ignoring the utterly astonished faces they had, "He wouldn't want to be someone else - he likes being tough, and mean, and prideful. I changed him a little bit, but it wasn't enough to redeem him."

Olibu cleared his throat, "If he's not ... there, then where else would he be? And if he is in Hell, maybe there's a reason that you don't know about. Maybe he really does deserve to be there and not here with you."

"No, I know the reason," she said. "Countless billions. Trillions of people maybe. It might pain him now, but that doesn't matter to Enma - for him it's not enough that he died trying to save me and the baby. His one selfless act ..." she gave them a little smile, "I'm not bitter. It just felt so wrong of me to die when his last wish was for me and the baby to live."

"Gokuu," Olibu said, "men like that ... I understand that you thought he was a good man, but the end result is still the same. Judgment is indefinite."

"I know, but why punish me too? I've never done any wrong, but I'm not allowed to enter Hell to see him, and he can never come into Heaven because his place is there. For him to see me would be a reward, and since he belongs in Hell, he can't have rewards." After a moment she raised her head to look at them, her eyes dry, "I don't even know if it would be a reward for him if he knew about our baby or not, but he deserves to know that he's a father ..."

"Perhaps," Paikuhan began, "we could go to see Enma. Maybe he has more information on this strange turn of events."

Nodding after a while, she said, "Yes. He gave me the ability to go through either Heaven or Hell once, so there must be exceptions to all of those rules."

"Of course. There are many insurrections down in Hell, so Enma lets me go down to put them back in their places. Especially, if there are a lot of extremely strong people doing it."

Eyes widening, she jumped in front of the green alien, "Really? You mean I could go see Vegeta if he's been bad or something?"

"Ah ... well, yes, I suppose you could do that if he starts to cause a riot in Hell."

Releasing a victorious shout, she beamed brilliantly, "I never thought I'd say this, but be mean, Vegeta! You hear me? I want to go see you, and tell you about our baby, so be as evil and mean as you can!"

--

Lalala ... I got a kitten. Not just any kitten either! I got a Piccolo-neko. XP Least, that's his name. He's a white, black, and gray tabby with _very_ bold, large stripes. He's very dark. Piccolo also tries sucking out my soul through my neck because he thinks it's going to produce nipples and feed him or something. XP Kitten-hickeys are hard to explain at work ...

--


	19. Redundant

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Nineteen: _Redundant_

--

"So ... it's _really_ not Olibu's baby?" Elra poked at her stomach, and then raised an eyebrow up at Gokuu, obviously still not quite believing her tale.

"Nope," she said, cheerfully confidant that the father would be causing a riot any time now, and crunched her fangs into her fifteenth watermelon. "The daddy's down in Hell."

Eyes widening, Elra then grinned, and nudged her with her elbow, "Why you sly dog! You like 'em bad too, huh? How'd you get into Heaven anyway?"

Blinking, she looked down at her, licking her fingers after finishing up the large fruit, "Because I've done nothing but good in my life. I'm innocent, and pure ... least that's what Kami-sama and King Kai always told me." She smoothed her hand over the developing curve of her belly, kicking her feet contentedly as they didn't reach the ground - the bed was too high up.

"... Gokuu, Olibu's in love with you. Why are you going around with some other guy's baby in you? A Hellion's baby even ... Do you even know what you're doing to Olibu with this act? How are you so sure it's not Olibu's?" Elra sat up, staring at the Saiyajin with large, astonished eyes.

"It's _Vegeta_'s baby because I died when I was pregnant," she said, wondering what Elra was getting upset about.

The nurse frowned as if thinking, and snapped her fingers in front of Gokuu's face, "Hello? I just told you that hunk-a-hunk of burning man flesh is in love with you. You even going to squeal or gush even a _little_ bit?"

"I ... should I be?"

Her jaw dropped before she covered her mouth, "Oh, my ... Gokuu, you don't understand me, do you? You really are that innocent ... you don't know that you're hurting Olibu at all!"

Freezing, Gokuu's hand clutched over her belly, "I'm hurting him? I don't want to hurt him, Elra - he's such a wonderful friend!"

Smiling a little sadly, she nodded, and took her hand to pat it with the other, "I know, sweetheart." She clutched at the Saiyajin's stronger hand before she sighed, and sat back, "Gokuu, are you still being ... _intimate_ with Olibu?" When Gokuu stared at her in confusion, she laughed softly, "I mean, is he still bringing you under his sheets?"

"Oh, no," she said, "he only does that when I ask him now. I've been ... restless. The doctor says I'm horny though, but I haven't seen any horns-"

Elra's abrupt cackle made Gokuu almost jump right off of the bed, "No wonder that poor boy is sticking around! You're so clueless about everything, he must enjoy being your teacher!" She calmed down a bit after that, "It's going to hurt him a hell of a lot when he learns that you don't know a thing about love ... Gokuu-chan, what _do_ you know about love? I mean, have you ever really felt it before?"

"... I love my Grandpa Gohan."

"Oh! So you do get it a little, huh? What do you think love is?"

She thought a moment, trying to recall all the uses of the word she had heard before, "It's between a family ... and friends ... and food!" Gokuu smiled, and patted her suddenly rumbling belly, "I love food."

"Okay, good, we got the gist of it now ..." Tapping her chin, she then nodded as if to herself in decision, "That's a different kind of love though. It comes in all sorts of forms. The way that Olibu loves you is ... you make all of his days just a little bit brighter. You ... love is when you feel like you can't go on without the other person for very long. When you can't stand being apart, and ... it's when it hurts to be away."

Gokuu had gone silent throughout this telling of love, and when Elra stopped as if searching for more words, she said, "It's when you get lonely ... when they're gone? No matter how many people are around you? No matter how many others say they love and adore you when all you want is for him to come back" - she let out a tear which she scrubbed away - "and scowl and shout at me?"

"Ah ... yeah. Yeah, something like that, Gokuu-chan."

"I miss him. I've found myself with all of these great friends - and you too - but that doesn't stop me from wanting him around." She pursed her lips as she let her thoughts go through her brain and out her mouth, "I go to bed every night, and think of him, and when I get up the next morning, I think ... 'I'll see him today. He'll cause a riot, and I'll see him today.'" She looked up into Elra's violet eyes, "Is this it then? That love? I ... need him, Elra. I can't think of not seeing him ever again."

The alien nurse gazed at her for a long while before she smiled, and clutched Gokuu's hand again, "I thought you actually had something for Olibu going on there, but this is about that man in Hell, isn't it? You're in love with Vegeta?"

Lowering her head, Gokuu then laid back into the bed, hugging her belly, "... Do you think that Enma would let me see him? Before I give birth, I mean? It's getting close now."

"Another month to go, right?" Gokuu smiled, and nodded, rubbing her belly more fondly then, "It's getting really big now ... but I don't know. Maybe. Enma might be a bit lenient towards a mother seperated from the father of her baby. Maybe your lover boy has been trying to be extra good so he _can_ see you."

"No ... I don't think that Vegeta even knows that I'm dead ..."

"He ... what?"

She nodded, "He died so that me and the baby could live ... it didn't do much good in the end though - he didn't know I was sick with the heart disease. He's probably still in Hell, thinking that I'm alive with a baby on the way."

"Huh ... maybe that's why he's not making any riots. He doesn't think he'll be able to see you until you're dead anyway! You _have_ to bother Enma now! You'll won't see Vegeta for another hundred years if he thinks you're still alive."

Gokuu sat up, her black eyes wide and shocked, "I don't want to wait that long to tell him about the baby!"

"The baby won't even be a baby then, Gokuu. It'll be all grown up!"

Frowning ahead at the thought of that tragedy, she then nodded, getting out of her bed to waddle toward the door, "I'll go talk to him now."

"Gokuu-chan, I think you need to get some clothes on first."

Blinking, she looked down at herself in her pajamas, and scratched the back of her head, "I don't have a lot of clothes that fit comfortably anymore though."

Elra sighed, and got up to shift through her clothes, "Let me see what you got, and then we can go shopping for something better to wear."

--

"Son Gokuu," Enma said conversationally as he stamped away, "I didn't know you were wished back - dead again already?"

"Nope, still dead," she told him with a grin, "and with a kid on the way."

Blinking, he paused in stamping the documents in front of him for the faintests of moments before he looked at her, "I see that. Congrats, Gokuu." He went back to his work, "What is it that you want?"

"A round way trip to Hell. I wanted to talk to Vegeta about the baby - he needs to know that I'm dead, and that the baby's okay."

He had been shaking his head before she stopped her plea, "No can do. It's not an emergency situation, Gokuu. Sorry."

"Well, can I send him a message then?"

He hummed, and tapped his chin mid-stamp, "If they can get to him. We lost track of him sometime after he entered Hell."

Gokuu began to pale, "What? You mean he's lost somewhere in there all by himself?

"I wouldn't say that he's _lost_, Gokuu. We just don't know where he is."

"Gokuu!"

Her head shot up, and a smile ripped her face nearly in two, "Kuririn! ... Kuririn? What happened to you? Why are you dead?"

He laughed nervously as he stepped up, and she then noticed Yamucha, and Tenshinhan behind him, "Some big cockroach if you'll believe it. Hell, _I_ almost don't believe it still. I never thought that the things I stepped on would ever step on me!"

"A bug?"

Kuririn turned serious then, "No, just looked like one I guess. It was an android. Someone made it to kill you, but ... well, you're already dead, so this thing went after us instead. Or at least, we jumped into its way first. Pretty stupid idea in hindsight - well, since you and Vegeta are dead and all." Blinking, his eyes finally narrowed in onto her stomach, "You ...?"

"Oh! It's Vegeta's baby." Grinning, she rubbed her belly fondly, "I'm going to give birth in about a month. Least that's what the doctor figures."

Yamucha leaned in to touch her extended stomach, "Wow, he's going to be a big kid, huh?"

"Yeah, the doctor said that too. 'Saiyajin have big babies,'" she said as if quoting someone with a slightly Russian accent.

"So Vegeta's down in Hell, right?" She jerked in shock, looking up to see Piccolo suddenly standing there.

"Ah, yeah, he is ..." her eyes narrowed, "Wait, it killed even you, Piccolo?"

"Unfortunately," he grunted.

Abruptly, Enma began to speed up his stamping, "What the ...? Hmm, got a bunch of souls coming in from Earth all of a sudden."

Piccolo's lips twisted in distaste, idly watching Chaotzu and Tenshinhan reunite, "So he got bored then."

Gokuu walked closer to look up at his face, "What do you mean?"

"All he wants to do is fight someone powerful. Since there was no one powerful enough to battle him left on Earth, he just blew it up." His eyes cut over to Enma, "I suggest that you brace yourself for an onslaught of death from multiple planets in the next few months. Though I wouldn't be surprised to see the entire universe on your doorstep come the end of the week."

Jerking in shock, his hand sped up, "...! What? I can't deal with that many souls! It'll be suicide down with the tanks, and with the ogres watching over the line! The lines for Heaven's jet plane will be backed up for aeons! And even _if_ we get this whole thing cleaned up, we'll all be out of a job!" He ceased moving long enough to clutch at his throat, "This'll do murder on my perfect work record!"

"I really want to say something," Kuririn said finally when Enma went back to being a stamping-machine, "but I don't think it's appropriate here."

**Gokuu ...!**

"Huh? King Kai?"

**Have you heard about the trouble down in my galaxy? It's a madhouse down there! There's already been four planets annihilated - Earth included!**

"Three more planets?"

"Three more?" Enma sped up.

**We need to do something, and fast before Enma's wrist gives out!**

"But what can we do? I'm still dead, and I have a baby on the way! I can't exactly go out and find this guy and expect to fight him!"

**What about Piccolo?**

"He was one of the first to go, King Kai. He's standing right beside me," perking to attention, she grabbed Kuririn and Piccolo, dragging them back a step to give the crowd of souls more room as they surged past.

**Vegeta then!**

"He's dead too, remember? And besides, no one can find him down in Hell anymore."

**Ooh, this is bad, bad, bad ... I'll be right back, I need to look up stuff about ressurections.**

Blinking, she then shrugged, and glanced around at the others, "He's going to look into something to help bring some of us back to life."

"Eeeugh ... count me out of it," Yamucha said, "I'm a mosquito compared to that guy. He'll just murder me all over again. I don't mean to leave you guys hanging, but that's just how it is!"

Pouting slightly, she nodded, "Okay, if you're sure. I'll wish you back with Namek-sei's dragonballs then."

"If they're still there," he muttered.

**Found something!**

"Ack!" She clapped her hands over her ears though it would not help the ringing in her head, "Don't shout!"

**Oh, eh, sorry, about that, but I found something interesting. 'They who are coming, they who are there, and they who have gone.' It has something to do with a Saiyajin world. I have the original copy right here.**

"What kind of world?"

**Let me see ... 'the Legendary World of the Dead.' Ept Pinto'Per'End. If I'm reading this right ... the World of the Dead is where the Saiyajin go after going through Hell. Since you never went to Hell, Gokuu, that's why you weren't admitted there. That must be where Vegeta is!**

If her heart were able to beat, she knew it would be pounding in her chest then, "You were saying something about bringing us back to life. What's that about, King Kai?"

**Says here ... It says here there's a portal somewhere in ... Desmen'Po'End Ept'Tedin. Where the Gods Walk. Supposedly there's a temple that leads straight to Vegeta-sei, and upon crossing the threshold, your life will be returned to you. But oh, this won't work at all since Vegeta-sei is gone.**

"No, King Kai! It will work! I wished Vegeta-sei back with the dragonballs before I left Earth to find Vegeta. It's the perfect plan."

"What? You wished it back?"

Blinking, the Saiyajin looked down at Kuririn, "Yeah, I thought that it would be fun for me and him to make a pit-stop there on the way back to Earth."

"Okay ..."

"Gokuu," Yamucha said, "this may not seem like the time to be asking, but ... why's the baby still alive? Or around, or ... whatever it is?"

"Ah? Oh, I don't know," she smiled fondly, and stroked her belly, "I think it's great though. Maybe after this, Vegeta and I won't have to miss out on each other, and we can raise the baby back home."

Kuririn smiled weakly, "If you can manage to wish Earth and everyone back."

"Don't worry, I'll work something out."

**Gokuu, we have to start right away. The Grand Kai just told me that if this Cell keeps on his rampage, the universe will be nothing but cosmic debris in a couple of years.**

She went quiet, staring ahead at nothing as her usual determination came over her face, however, after a moment, she blinked a few times in bewilderment, "Wait, who's Cell?"

--

What was decided was a journey into Hell - for through there was the way into Ept Pinto'Per'End. Piccolo had been meant for Hell upon his death, so he was to be Gokuu's bodyguard for the trip. He would accompany her until she could get into Ept Pinto'Per'End because only Saiyajin could enter the Saiyajin's afterlife. She would be on her own after that.

Not that this detered her. The first thing she did was take Piccolo's hand, and teleported to where she felt Freeza. The Icejin jerked away in shock before he gritted his teeth together, "You!"

"Hi!"

"Gokuu!" Piccolo yanked her back away from the tirant, stepping in front of her, "Are you mad?"

"Huh? No, I'm not mad at anyone. I just wanted to see if Vegeta was hiding out around him."

"Peh, sweet Vegeta-san?" Freeza hissed, and his splayed out fingers curled into a fist, "Ah, yes, he died about a year ago, didn't he?" His eyes cut down to look around Piccolo at the pregnant Saiyajin, "I take it that's his, right?"

She nodded, exhuming total calmness, "Yes."

His fist opened up a bit, violet energy glowing bright in his palm, "What sweet revenge that this will be then! It was a mistake to come here, Gokuu!"

Watching Piccolo grimace, she merely stepped back a foot, her tail curling up and then wagging about - not yet concerned over the two super-powers in front of her. The Icejin rushed forward, cracking their skulls together as Freeza's tail lengthened, and whipped it around Piccolo to aim for Gokuu's belly, obviously about to skewer her alive.

Her hand lashed out, and Gokuu tore off his tail with an abrupt rip sounding through the air. Afterwards, she frowned at the squirming, severed appendage in her hand before she threw it aside, "... Don't do that."

Freeza hissed, and stepped around the Namekjin as his tail was abruptly back in place behind him, lashing almost dociley behind himself, "... What is it that you want here, Saiyajin? Surely, you got all that you wanted out of Vegeta-san already," he gestured to her rotund belly.

"Have you seen him?" She asked finally.

His head cocked to the side, obviously considering another attempt to harm her and the babe before he shrugged, and turned away, "What can I say? Vegeta-san and I lost touch after I killed him. There's not much that I could tell you. Besides, if he was still down here, I wouldn't know the first place to look since I don't think like a monkey."

"Well, have you seen any Saiyajin since you've been down here?"

"Why? You want to get _fat_ all over again when you expell that dirty monkey?"

"Maybe, but first I want to find Vegeta."

Turning around to stare at her, Freeza cocked a hairless brow at her oddly, pausing as if expecting something before he snorted, "I haven't seen tail nor hair of you filthy beasts until you showed up just now."

"All right, thanks, Freeza," she said, and then nodded to Piccolo, "Come on. Let's see if any ogres saw Vegeta."

"Wait!"

She glanced over at the white alien, loosely crossing her arms on top of her belly, "What is it?"

"You've found something out, haven't you," Gokuu could tell that it wasn't a question, and she only smiled at him before she nudged Piccolo's ribs to motivate him to keep moving. "If I had my body, I could start training to defeat this new plateau of power, but they don't afford bodies to people that go to Hell. It's a shame. Once the devil of the universe, and now only a spectator."

"Anything I could say wouldn't be any encouragement," she said. "You've lived your life. Now you have to learn to accept the consequences."

They were a couple of meters away before her ears caught Freeza's murmur, "Are we good because we want to be good? Or are we good because we want to go to Heaven? Is there a difference?"

--

The boy looked up to see the three figures - exact replicas of the one beside him except for their attire. The man in the red armor looked down at him, and patted his head, "Ah, I'm sorry about this, little one. You never even got to be born."

"What do you care?" His voice rasped, unused to talking after trekking after their energy signals for the past year and a half. "It's what you're supposed to do."

"... I remember now." He slowly pulled his hand back, so as to not attract the young boy's fangs, "You're dead too now, so you can talk."

"I could talk before."

The man snorted, "And what need did you have so that you could talk?"

"The need to live - to survive," he tilted his head to the side as he looked up at him. "One of the greatest needs of the universe. I want to be born."

"You will be, just not into the world of the living."

"Then what's the point in being born?"

"What's the point in not going back into the womb?"

Approaching closer, the boy's tail lashed out, "I want to live. This place is boring me after waiting for so long. I know this place already, and I want something new."

The Legendary Super Saiyajin hissed, and spun around, gnashing his fangs in rage, "Spoiled brat! Join the soul with the body within her! If you do not, that body - their only vessel will die totally and utterly! The game will be lost. Your mother will fade away, and you with her!"

"I will _not_ be born as something that's no better than a corpse!"

"The way is closed! Forget about life ... You will fade away into nothingness if you don't do as I say. She will die a miserable, painful death in labor while she attempts to give birth because of an unruly brat that cares nothing for her!"

The retort was quick, "What, and you do?"

Stiffening, he gazed down at the boy before he turned away, "I do. And if you do not repent, I will rip the babe from her belly to keep her here. So she won't fade into nothing."

"No ... this is so _they_ won't fade away," he glanced out of the corner of his eyes at the other two who had remained silent throughout the exchange. "What will you do if you can't save them from my so-called unruliness?"

"The way is closed," he insisted. "They will only meet with their true death at long last ... and you as well. The way is closed."

--

... XP Okay, I _tried_ to make as short as the normal chapters were. It just didn't work, okay? Doubt that you guys are complaining, of course.

--


	20. Father and Daughter

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Twenty: _Father and Daughter_

--

"Son," Piccolo groaned, eyeing her and the plates of food in front of her, "I thought you were dead."

Looking up at him, her mouth stuffed with pasta, she then paused to swallow hard, and smiled, "I am, Piccolo. Why? What's wrong?"

He opened his mouth before he grunted, and shook his head, "Never mind."

With a wide grin, she dug back into the meal before her, scarfing down as much as she could in the shortest amount of time as she was able. These breaks that she took to feed herself and the infant were rather frequent of late, so Piccolo urged her to hurry so that they could begin their search again. They were both already only a couple of days into the trip, and they had found no information on Ept Pinto'Per'End.

None of the men that she remembered Vegeta talking about knew where he was, and, naturally, that meant they didn't know about any other Saiyajin either. Besides herself, of course.

Suddenly she yawned in the middle of a bite, and he saw her eyelids begin to droop. Piccolo scowled at her, "We can't afford to sleep, Son. If we don't hurry, Cell will have destroyed even New Namek-sei!"

She nodded, shoving another bite of the pasta into her mouth to stifle it. Gokuu blinked up at him when he growled, and he looked away from her so that he didn't have to watch her only to see several ogres that were coming up.

Pouting, she munched into a few more bites before she got up, and encapsulized the rest of the food, "I'll finish after we talk to them, okay?" Standing up, she waved over to them, hailing them over, "Hey! Hi! Can I talk to you guys for a minute?"

The four looked at each other for a moment before sniggering, and advancing on them rather threateningly. A blue ogre asked, "Aw, you two are going to personally ask for a beating then?"

The green ogre cracked his knuckles as he loomed over Gokuu, "Sounds like it. How nice of 'em to ask!"

"Yeah," a yellow one leered at Piccolo, "we usually have 'em screaming for it."

"Oh, no," Gokuu said with a smile, "I just wanted to ask you something."

"What? Changing your mind now, little dove?" The green ogre grabbed onto her hair, not yet pulling on it.

"No, I just want to know if _you_ know about the Saiyajin's Legendary World of the Dead."

The yellow ogre's hand paused over Piccolo's antennae, and looked over at the pink ogre that had lagged behind, "Saiyajin? Oi, Jakimono! Why's that sound all familiar-like?"

Jakimono, the pink ogre, scratched his head, "Eeh ... sounds like it should have some other ring to it."

"Try Ept Pinto'Per'End," Piccolo said, eyeing the hand above his sensitive antennae, "Does that sound familiar?"

Licking his lips, Jakimono stuck his hand into his pocket before he pulled out a notebook, "Mm, wasn't there that guy from before? He went in not so long ago if I recall. Short fella with the cat tail."

"Monkey tail!" Gokuu chirped happily, her own tail wagging in excitement.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" The green ogre pulled his hand back, "But the little guy - he said called hisself an ape." He blinked, and then cocked his head to the side, seeing her tail lash about, "Looked like that tail there!"

Jakimono walked over to see it, and then grunted, "You must be the Son Gokuu or Kakarotto with child, eh?"

Releasing an abrupt purr, she nodded, and hugged her belly, "Yup! Can you take me to that World of the Dead place now?"

"Uggh ... yeah, yeah," the green ogre snorted, and scratched the back of his head before he looked over at the others, "One of you guys do it. I did it last time."

Rolling his eyes, Jakimono waved her over, and Gokuu waddled over to follow him, her tail flopping everywhere in her happiness. Piccolo, with nothing better to do, followed after her, ignoring the looks that the ogres were tossing at him. They were led to a large rock that Jakimono told her to stand up on, and she did so with no hesitation whatsoever.

He almost envied her trustworthy nature, but tossed the sensation aside - it was, after all, what got her killed that first time.

The pink ogre looked through some near by bushes, all the while, glowering at the green ogre - for he snickered at the clumsy way that he was searching through the brush. Finally however, Jakimono grinned in triumph before yanking on something, and the stone beneath Son Gokuu simply flashed out of existance. Eyes wide, he watched as she disappeared down the resulting hole, and absently hoped that the baby would be all right if she didn't catch herself in time.

When the stone reappeared the four muttered to themselves before they noticed Piccolo, and then advanced on him. With a grimace, he wondered why he followed her if he would have been left alone with the employees of Hell.

--

Radittsu huffed before he frowned over at the man by his side, "Why did you even come along if you're not going to have any fun?"

Shrugging disinterestedly, Vegeta's eyes trailed over the dancing bodies of the female flesh that strained and sweated to the beat of the music. He should have been drooling over the lovely muscles and flat bellies with their rounded hips and breasts, however, the faces weren't right. A waist was either too small or didn't have enough of that solid steel beneath it, or their breasts were bulging, ungainly melons or nothing at all. They winked at him, and offered him things with either a strange accent or in old ancient words that he hardly understood. He didn't hear anyone say to him that they needed him.

He wanted Kakarotto back.

The most simplest of thoughts persisted to stun and amaze him. Only three years before, he had been ready to shred apart her vital organs between his fangs, but now he would rather tenderly nibble up her inner thigh. When he began to realize these things, he knew that the next two hundred years would really be Hell.

He would wait still, but when Radittsu had been leaving, he knew that he could not wait alone. The prince had followed Radittsu out of what he kept calling the New Circa - or sometimes Circa 7843.

Every slice that was added onto Ept Pinto'Per'End was named a Circa, and every Circa had a number associated with it to mark the year that Saiyajin had been around to worship their gods. The two of them had travelled to Circa 7375 in the past year, slowly going farther and farther back into the history of their people. During this century, Vegeta knew that there should have been just caves, and underground huts that the people would live in, yet with the overflow of the Saiyajin, more advanced, comfortable homes had been added to the Circa.

With no real central government anymore, the Saiyajin lived in a sort of Utopia, each unanimously agreeing that fighting was for fun, and that death here was ultimate. Killings and murders were rare in Ept Pinto'Per'End. Circa 7375 had been outfitted with homes for the growing population, but this decade was a mostly commercial area, and many raunchy clubs dotted the streets, and sky.

He and Radittsu were currently in a skyship that went in slow circles around the sky, and it was able to house two thousand people inside. Secretly, Vegeta believed that there were a good thousand more than that, but he doubted that anyone was counting anymore.

"The prince is here!" Someone began to shout, or rather, Vegeta could finally hear them over the din of the music and voices. The shout soon began to drown out the background noise, and the club was silent, but for the voice ringing out words in Japanese, "The prince is here!"

He heard hushed voices around him murmuring amongst themselves. Most of the time, he understood them, and listened attentively. These people had been around other Saiyajin that spoke older, more strange tongues, so sometimes, the language seemed to mix and warp. When he had first tried speaking to other Saiyajin after he accompanied Radittsu, hardly any correctly understood what he was saying for many of his words were either outdated, or had been twisted into some other form. Yet, having lived a year among them, he could finally start to decipher them. He heard, "The prophet. Why is she here?"

"I thought she found her true death many Circas ago."

"Wasn't she born in Circa 4?"

"No, it was the First Circa."

"Ridiculous! That was the Legendary! She was born in Circa 50 and bore him seventeen sons!"

"No, she's a virgin!"

"Fools, she's a warrior that slept with all the men of her time, and carried no children for she was barren! Only later was she a prophet!"

Vegeta's eyes narrowed, watching a naked lithe young woman make her way toward him. She was the one shouting in Japanese like she had been born speaking the langauge, "The prince is here!"

Stopping right in front of him, she then bowed before she knealt in front of him, "A message for you from a goddess."

He sat up straighter when he felt eyes draw toward him, and then he rose to his feet, ignoring Radittsu's hiss of dissaproval, "That decieving bitch should have spoken to me directly instead of sending some skinny, little girl after me."

"She can't leave her hallowed grounds. She plays a dangerous game."

He spat in front of her feet despite the angered shouts that resulted around him, "I would think that her game would be over by now. There are only two Saiyajin left for her to play with."

"None are left," she chimed, and then smiled at the astonishment on his face. "The goddess wants to know why you are not going to her. She might die. Might meet her true death while you dabble in the flesh of other women."

Vegeta choked out, sitting with a thud into his chair, "She ... she died?"

"The way will be opened, Proud, but you must find it first. Or she will die utterly and completely. A goddess's life, or the life of a planet and its people. Those are the prizes, Proud. Do you have the right bartering chip?"

Trying to shake away the rising stupor from learning of Kakarotto's death, he turned it into rage, and directed it at the woman before him, "What the hell are you babbling about? You sound like that bastard Turles."

"The die has been cast, Proud. You're still being played with, and she is going to lose. But all will be lost by then, so it won't matter. Nothing will matter then."

--

"I hate obstacles that interfere with our game," the God of War groaned as he saw through the black board.

"I don't worry about obstacles that I already know about," the Goddess said, stroking her only black die.

His eye narrowed at her before he grunted, and rolled another die, "You think I don't know about him? I made that planet - I made this place. I know about him, and his ambitions. He's just as greedy and foolish as you are."

Gasping, she looked up at him, "If you knew, then why are you letting him live?"

"A goddess's life awaits me after I win the game, remember?" His cold gaze met with her eyes, "I won't have to worry about him once you finally die. One night means nothing."

"One night? What about over seven thousand years? What does _that_ mean to you?"

"That's the time it takes to play a game, and now that game is almost over." The eye he had left blinked slowly as it looked her over, and then he snorted, his hand reaching out as if to stroke her cheek, but stopped just before touching her. When she didn't budge, he smirked, "Are you afraid now that you're about to lose? You must have already come to terms with it. That's so sweet. I enjoy your fear."

Shivering, she shook her head, "This isn't fear."

He sat back in the chair, "Then what is it?"

"Just disappointment." She said, and then set her die down on the table, "I'm sad. I don't think that I've been sad in a long time."

"... It's your turn."

"No, I'd rather not roll this turn."

--

"So what are you going to do now that she is here?" The boy smiled dryly, "Are you going to rip the babe from her belly?"

The Legendary scowled, "Only if you persist in this ridiculous scheme."

"She's useful. Her and the others with her." When the Legendary snarled and advanced on him, he merely grinned wider, "Go ahead. I dare you. That won't help you at all, and you know it. The soul will still be in my possession, and she and the others will meet their true death. I'm sure that's the last thing on your agenda."

"Just ... put the soul back. You don't have to do it like this," he began, sounding desparate.

"Ah, but I do."

"What is it that you want from me? I'll do anything to put that soul back in her. Just tell me, and I'll do anything!"

The boy tilted his head to the side as he stared at the Legendary Super Saiyajin, "If that is the case ..."

"Trust me, it is! Don't do this to her!"

"... I want you - all of you -" he cast his eyes toward the other two, "to fight a god."

--

Groaning softly, her eyes fluttered open before she blinked in shock at the sight of a man above her. For one fleeting moment, she thought it was Turles, and her arm wrapped around her belly protectively before she realized that his skin was too light to belong to Turles. With a bit of effort, she pushed herself so that she could sit up. Gokuu cocked her head to the side when she saw men with him that must have been his brothers for they looked exactly alike to one another. She stiffened again when she did see Turles hanging around in the back however.

"You! Vegeta and I are dead because of you and the others! How could you do this to us?"

When a pang of regret came over his features, she backed down a bit, slightly confused. The man that had been over her when she had awakened patted her shoulder reassuringly, "Please. He wasn't himself, Kakarotto. One of his Original Images took over."

Her tail perked up, "'Took over' what?"

"My mind. My body ..." he shrugged, and looked away, "My soul. I couldn't break free. None of us could. I just woke up that day, but ... it wasn't me controlling my body. Kakarotto, I would have never treated you like that - you're my niece."

"It's okay," she said, rubbing her belly when the babe began to try fighting with her hand on the other side. "I'm sorry about that. You just ..."

"I understand. What you remember of everything must put me in a very bad light."

Gokuu crossed her legs on the cot, shifting around for comfort while the battle in her belly progressed, "Remember what?"

The man that looked like Turles frowned, "About the past. What you remember from the lives of your Original Images." When she could only stare at him awkwardly, his eyes widened, "... Baby? Kakarotto, do you remember me? Baby girl, it's me ..."

She bit her lip, chewing on it thoughtfully while she gazed up at him before she finally said, "I'm sorry."

The man became still, shoulders hunching up as if to protect himself. Turles clenched his jaw before he patted the man's back to calm him down, "... Kakarotto, this is your father. Bardock."

"Bardock?" She canted her eyes toward him again, looking him up and down before giving him a small smile, "Hi ... Did you want to feel the baby? Its been moving around like crazy ever since I woke up." Their eyes brightened a bit, and she glanced over at the three other Bardocks, waving them over, "Are you his Original Images or whatever? You can come feel the baby too."

--

... XP I want my pie back! Dion ate it all ... XP

--


	21. You're All I Need

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Twenty-One: _You're All I Need_

--

The moment that the nude prophet left, Vegeta pushed through the resulting crowd around him. The inquisitive questions thrown his way were ignored. After all, it wasn't every day that some ancient prophet spoke in a strange tongue to some otherwise normal looking young man who spoke the same language.

He was nearing the edge of the crowd when he realized that Radittsu had somehow stepped up in front of him. Then he noticed that Radittsu had not been wearing a dark green toga-like ensemble, and nor did he have two lackeys that looked exactly like him. Vegeta's eyes narrowed in on the strange triplets as he felt his Radittsu's energy signal stop behind him.

"Good evening," the lead Radittsu finally murmured in Japanese, his accent strange. "It's been a long time since I've seen your face."

"Wonderful," he muttered, and glanced back at the Radittsu that he knew personally, "... Did you lead me to them or them to me?"

Eyes bulging out, Radittsu floundered for a moment, "I ..."

"Don't be so hard on him. He's only forty years into being after all. I'm near to eight thousand now," said the toga wearing Radittsu.

With a growl, Vegeta positioned himself so that he wasn't surrounded by the four forms of Radittsu, and tried to head toward the exit again, "What makes you think I care right now?"

"It's about my sister, isn't it?" Asked a Radittsu that was sporting the green armor which had been the ecto-skeleton of a Saibaman.

"Oh, brilliant deduction!" He snarled as the three swarmed threateningly in front of him again.

The toga wearing Radittsu grinned, "Don't leave just yet. I'm sure she's just fine."

"Yes," sneered the armor wearing man, "she might only be the next dinner for whomever she's met."

Releasing a snarl, Vegeta clenched his hands into fists, "She's not the weakling that you four might know her as."

"Oh, but she is. She's that weakling, and more," said the third Radittsu, who was wearing a red and violet tunic. His eyes kept twitching every now and then as if looking for people that would sneak up on him.

Vegeta's hesitation caused them to grin, but he quickly spoke up, "And just what's that supposed to mean?" He glanced back at the Radittsu he knew, and frowned when it seemed that he was very confused and lost looking. With a snort, he directed his attentions back toward the other three.

"Vegeta, I didn't call for them ..."

Scowling, he looked at him again, vaguely noticing that the crowd had backed down when they had seen the Original Images approach them, "Then who sent for them? Who?"

"It wasn't me! I've been trying to help you, damn it!"

Mulling over that, Vegeta put his eyes back on the new three, and stretched out his senses only for them to discover several strange groups of energy signals waiting outside of the skyship for him, "Shit! Radittsu, there are four more groups of the eight waiting outside for us."

"All of them? Even Nappa?"

He let out a bitter laugh, "Seems like he's still angry over me killing him."

"The Images of Nappa have wanted you dead for a long time now," the toga wearer said. "We all have."

He pursed his lips in thought before he laughed shortly, and shrugged, shocking them by starting to power up, "I'll just have to treat this like any man of Freeza's army then. Several men wanting me dead all at once was normal whenever I was taking a walk down the hall." Hovering just on the edge of transforming into Super Saiyajin, Vegeta then burst over the crowd's head, and through the wall.

Spying the skyship that the Image groups had caught a ride on, he swerved around them, flying toward the Gateway which would lead him to the next Circa. He was brought to an abrupt halt when an Image of Brolli phased in front of him. He didn't know which Image he was, but nor did he care, so Vegeta batted him away and continued racing for the Gateway.

Such a feat was not so easy however, for he quickly returned to slam down onto Vegeta's back. The prince caught himself half way down the the ground, and ascended into Super Saiyajin, smirking up at the man far above him. He caught the merest twitch of the corner of this Brolli's lips before he too ascended into the golden form. Freezing up, Vegeta watched with trepidation as Images other than Brolli's ascended along with them, and he let out a breath that he hadn't realized that he was holding in.

"... Shit."

--

Smiling in delight, Gokuu took the bowl, and greedily gulped the soup down after her Bardock set it down in front of her. He smiled slightly at her, and then patted her belly again, "This baby's going to have a long journey ahead of it, huh?"

After setting the empty bowl down, she licked her lips, and hugged her belly happily, "Yeah, but then we'll get to see Vegeta again. It's going to be so great to see him after so long."

"Mmmh ..." Bardock stood up straight then, and returned to the firepit with the empty bowl, filling it up once more with the lizard stew, "... Why Vegeta?"

"What do you mean?"

Going back to her with the bowl, he watched her slurp it down, "I mean why do you keep choosing him for a mate? There's a thousand and one better males out there to choose from - even if they weren't Saiyajin ..." He took the bowl back for another run when she finished with it, and soon handed it back, "Why Vegeta?"

She blinked up at him owlishly, sipping from the bowl in thought before she grinned, "I love him." The four Bardocks' eyes widened while Turles jerked, spilling hot soup on his thigh, and making him yelp, "He just makes me happy to be around him, and I want to make him happy while he's around me too. I miss him a lot."

"You didn't seem like you loved him in the beginning," the Bardock in the gray tunic said. "You hated him with every fiber of your being after what he did to you. Anything less than seeing him dead upset you terribly."

She took the new bowl from her Bardock, and supped from it before asking, "What did he do?"

His lips twisted distastefully before he sighed, and closed his eyes as if pained, "... I was a famous general of my time. I led my clan into many great victories, but ... after my first daughter was born - you, Kakarotto - we finally settled down beside a creek, and built a town there. It ... was not our wisest choice, I suppose, since we had to defend the water almost exclusively, but I was content there to raise my children as great warriors. When Ept Vegeta and his army came from the north, sweeping across the land like a massive sandstorm, my people and I were powerless to stop him. He took you as his plaything, beating and raping you as he pleased. When he learned that you were _my_ daughter, I had to do his every order, or else he would force me to watch you die."

At the end of his little tale, Gokuu had gone through about thirty more bowls, and just finished off another one, "Not me. Her." At the bewildered look on his face, she explained, "I'm Son Gokuu. She and I are not the same person. That happened to Kakarotto, your daughter - not me." She sat up a bit straighter, and stroked her belly, "I won't let that happen to me. If he did try to hurt me, he knows that I would just hit back anyway." She pursed her lips before she then asked, "... What happened to her?"

"... She got pregnant, and I convinced her to to run away after she started to show. You ... Kakarotto managed to keep the baby a secret from Ept Vegeta, but I knew that she would lose the baby if she continued to stay with him. It was a miracle that the baby was still alive even after what he must have been doing to her."

Frowning, she put down her fifty-third helping from the bowl, "Why did you need to convince her if she hated him?"

This Bardock smirked after a moment, "You're right. He already knew about the baby. She hated him because the only reason he treated her well - the only reason he had ever been kind to her was because she carried his possible heir. After a while, his treatment began to get to her. She couldn't stand him treating her so lovingly - not knowing if he really meant it or not." He shrugged uneasily under her gaze, "I told her to run. When Vegeta learned that she was gone, he almost killed me, but instead, he released me from my duty. I died only a few months later, and a few years after that, I learned that Kakarotto had returned to Ept Vegeta before she had given birth. The person I learned it from had only heard about it through other people that hadn't been directly involved, so I don't know what really happened, but he died when she went into labor, and never got to see his son."

As her hand clenched over her protruding belly, she looked at the other three Bardocks, "What about you guys?"

The first one that spoke up was her Bardock, and he merely shrugged and smiled, "You were an infant when I died. You were just born, so I don't know anything about what's happened between you and the prince."

"... I was a part of a team ordered to help reconstruct the planet," said the Bardock that was wearing a very plain blue tunic. "We had very few trees, but the Tsufurujin claimed that the planet used to be covered in them. We worked hard to recreate the world we didn't remember ... The day I hired a young Saiyajin called Vegeta was the day my daughter came on board. Females had to work three times as hard as the males to get the pay they got, and Kakarotto did everything she could to reach end's meet. Her hard work attracted his eyes, and he claimed her against her will. It wasn't until he left her pregnant that we learned he was our leader's son. The whole project had been a test for Ept Vegeta - to show his father that he could work as hard as the commoners." He glanced at Gokuu, and pursed his lips before he looked away, "She never saw him again, and he never knew about the child he left in her."

The Bardock in black armor - similar in style to the skeleton that had been found almost two years before - scowled ahead at nothing before he finally looked at her, "She raised our family to the status of nobility all on her own. That was unheard of for a female, and Ept Vegeta found out somehow, and, soon after, they struck a bargain with each other. If Kakarotto bore his House an heir, he would give her an heir for her House too, and at the same time, he would protect her House from rival Houses. And he struck a deal with me ... and the others ..." He laughed with no humor after that, not elaborating on whatever deal there had been, and Gokuu felt an odd chill when she heard the nearly mad laughter, "... She gave birth to twin sons after he died, giving his House the heir it needed, and her own House its heir."

Gokuu set the bowl down with a clink, and shook her head when her father offered her more of the stew. She almost scowled at them when they shot one another knowing glances, but she sat up straighter instead, "We have to keep moving." Taking Turles' hand when he helped her stand up, she began to walk beside him as they moved toward the controls of the ship. While they walked ahead of them, she whispered, "What about your story? What do you think of me and Vegeta?"

Smirking, he patted her spikey hair, "Radittsu and I visited you when you were born just before we left the planet for a purging mission. After we learned the planet had been destroyed, he and I went our separate ways. I couldn't stand Freeza, but Radittsu couldn't stand leaving the prince. I did my own thing for years up until I met with Paragus and Brolli. They claimed that they wanted to rebuild the Saiyajin Empire. Well, Paragus claimed - Brolli never talked much. Vegeta came into the picture a few months later, and you came only about a week or so after that ... Vegeta didn't talk much either, and he kept to himself more, but when you showed up, he left his room more just to be with you. If it wasn't love, it was devotion at the very least."

A smile lit up on her face, and she rubbed her large stomach gently when she felt the baby flutter and awaken, "Mm ..."

After a moment, he looked down at her as he began to take the ship off of auto-pilot, "Do you really think that gate is there? The one that will bring you back to life?"

"Yup, and Vegeta-sei is back too so we'll have somewhere to go when we go through it. After that, I'll be out of this strange world, and I'll be able to teleport us to New Namek-sei, so I can wish Earth back."

"...? Teleport?" He glanced down at her again, and she just smiled.

"That's why I wanted to travel with you guys. I'm a bit slower since I'm pregnant, _and_ I can't teleport into other ... Circas?" When he affirmed that she said the right word, she continued, "And according to you, we can't go through the Gateways connecting Circas unless we're in some kind of ship." She pointed out the window at the black abyss everywhere except where they could see the random spaceship here and there, "Besides, I can't survive out in space for that long either."

"So ... you're saying if Gateways weren't here, you would have been able to go straight to Vegeta's side?"

"Yeah, or at least _something's_ in the way. I can probably teleport within Circas, but not into the next one even if I was standing right beside a Gateway."

"I see," he murmured, "and you say you can ... feel his energy?"

She bit her lip before she nodded, "Yeah, him, and three other energy signals that feel exactly like him. He's not with them though. Vegeta's fighting against a bunch of people that feel like Brolli and you though." When Turles' eyes widened, she sighed, "I don't think we can make it in time at this rate."

--

Coughing up blood with a grimace, he rolled onto his back, squinting up at the sky to watch three large blurs descend down upon him. All of them glowed with the power of a Super Saiyajin, and he winced in pain as Brolli stepped onto his chest, trying to crush him. Vegeta's energy flickered a bit, almost dropping out of his Legendary state. Turles reached down, and picked him up by his spandex shirt after Brolli pulled away.

The Image of a Super Saiyajin Turles dusted him off like some kind of dirty rag before he tossed him into the air, and then kicked him across the sands. Gritting his fangs together tightly, he managed to not swallow as much sand as the last time when he landed - having crashed through a mountain to be hidden on the other side. He pushed himself onto his feet before he wavered, about to tumble over once again. He heard them shouting out his name, and telling him to give up, but he couldn't see where they had gone. Vegeta wanted to give up - needed to so badly if only he wouldn't be in such pain, but he had finally felt the presence of his quasi-mate, and he didn't want to relent to these men when she was close enough for them to feel each other. He wondered why she had not just teleported to his side, but perhaps she had given up on him surviving. She had to hate putting up with his utter uselessness all the time.

Cringing as his thoughts drove him to further speculations on why she would abandon him, he felt his knees collapse and hit the red rocks beneath him. Had she found another male to sate her? Another man that she needed more than him? _No one will need you more than I though, Kakarotto ... but if you don't need me - even just a little bit - giving up is about all I'll have left._ He heard someone land in front of him, and he gritted his fangs, almost loathing the thought of it, _Damn it, Kakarotto. Why aren't you here when I  
really_ need you?

"Hey, Proud," his eyes widened, and he looked up to see his grandfather standing there, "looks like you need some help."

"You ...?" Vegeta jerked in shock when another man dropped down to stand beside him.

"What the _hell_ are you doing on your knees? Get up, dumb fuck," he said, and then he smirked when the prince leapt to his feet with a growl befitting an animal.

"How dare you insult me!"

"Like this," he cleared his throat before he exclaimed more clearly. "Dumb. Fuck."

As his eyes became more bulbous in astonishment, several other Saiyajin males landed near him. One man - whom was floating a little above the ground as if his legs were useless - said boredly, "So are we all going to stand here, and wait for those guys to find, and clobber us, or what?"

"Sounds promising," said the rude man, "but no. I'd rather get out of here now. Come along, Proud, it's time to stop playing with your little friends."

His grandfather grabbed Vegeta's hand, and he was pulled away from the large rocks which had served to hide them from the searching Original Images. He automatically wrenched his hand away, but kept moving hurriedly with them, still knowing that it was his own Original Image that had done the Saiyajin Race in, but unable to forget. What his father used to say had always bothered him. His grandfather had been a good, just king - for a Saiyajin - in all respects but one. _He_ had been that man who had first made contact with Freeza, and he had been the one to forge their alliance. Had they never met however, the prophecy would have not come to be, and the planet would have had to meet its demise through some other way.

Vegeta forced out a harsh sigh, easily keeping up with them as they snuck away through a canyon. Yet he had more to worry over than a grandfather who didn't deserve as much of the blame as he had gotten. Kakarotto still hadn't come to his side, and he had no idea who these men were.

--

But you guys know! ... XP If you've kept up so far or go back to read Chapter Two. Uh ... -cheesey grin- Look, I've updated finally! XP

--


	22. Wish You Were Here

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Twenty-Two: _Wish You Were Here_

--

Clutching at her belly, she kept her senses open to Vegeta, and followed his escape from the strange people with very similar energy signatures. Her baby stirred, and kicked at her hand, but she only smiled softly, stroking her protruding belly tenderly, "It's all right. Daddy will be okay."

Hearing someone come to her door, she looked up to see her father. He nodded, and smiled faintly, "We got through the Space Circas. Welcome to Circa 7813 - this was the year that Freeza destroyed our planet." Gokuu stood up carefully, minding her girth since it was still steadily growing, and walked out of the ship with him, "We can travel by flight now that we got through those Circas. Besides," he bent down to whisper with a chuckle, "we're kind of out of fuel, and low on cash."

Giggling, she looped her arm with his as if he were escorting her, "That's okay. I think you guys will be able to manage."

"Ha!" With a smirk, he lead her out where his Original Images and Turles were waiting.

Turles cocked his head to the side at her when they flew up into the air, and blasted toward the next Gateway, "Are you sure the baby can handle flying this fast?"

"Hmm? Oh," she laughed, and patted her stomach. Gokuu was currently flying face-up to avoid having her belly dangling dangerously while she flew, "The baby will be fine. I fly faster than this all the time." When his eyebrows lifted in doubt, she grinned, "Remember, I'm a Super Saiyajin ... and a little bit more now. The baby is just fine, and it likes flying anyway." He still looked worried, so she waved her hand at him, "Besides, you said they have some kind of bus system for Gateways. I'll only be flying when we get to our destination so we can go wait at the next Gateway."

"Well," Turles said as they landed beside the Gateway, "if you're sure." He walked ahead of them, and they followed to look at a bulletin board for the times that ships took Saiyajin back and forth through Gateways. "Let's see ... There's a Gateway Transport leaving for Circa 7500 in ten minutes." He grabbed a brochure, and handed it to her after opening it up. After a moment she realized that it was a sort of map of Ept Pinto'Per'End when he pointed at one of the slices in the pie-like diagram, "We're in this one, and Circa 7500 is over here." He slid his finger over the edge of the pie-shaped map to a blue shaded slice, "It's a residential zone so if he's around there, maybe he's found a nice little place that you three can stay at until he finds something bigger."

After a moment of doing calculations in her head, she frowned, "He's farther than that though." She ran her finger along the edge of the circle until she figured that she had vaguely found his location, "He's around here now."

"Shit," the first Bardock murmured - first for they had discovered that he had been born the earliest of them all, during Circa 342. "From what you were saying before, I thought he'd be in around Circa 7400 or something, but that's way back around Circa 6000. How'd he get there?"

"I've been keeping track of his location," she began, "and about an hour ago, he was suddenly travelling very fast, and stopped about there." She sighed, and pouted, "He had to get away from those Original Images, and I think some people helped him, and led him onto one of these ships. They're still with him too." Gokuu glanced up at the first Bardock as he sighed and rubbed his face tiredly, "Is there a ship that can take us that far?"

It was the third Bardock - born in Circa 5274 - that spoke, "This station can only go as far as Circa 6500 right now."

"We'll take it then. When does it leave?"

"Twenty-five minutes. Let's go find the lift for it so we can wait," nodding, she followed them into the little building beside the Gateway.

Since she was out of the ship, she was able to actually see the Gateway, and Gokuu gaped at the immensity of it's pillars and arch which seemed to stretch up past the sky. The stone was a glistening white in the two suns, and it was a stark contrast to the red planet on which it inhabited. After a moment, she tugged at her father's hand, almost feeling like a little girl doing so, "Why doesn't anyone go through without a transport ship?"

"No one knows. I'm not even sure if anyone _can_," he chuckled before he brought her closer to wrap an arm around her shoulders, "but don't worry about that. We got to find your mate so he can finally see one of his kids. We'll go on a bunch of picnics when he's born, and I can help train him when he learns to walk."

"Oh ..." she looked down at the floor, "I can't do that though."

"What?"

"When I find Vegeta, we have to come back to life," she elaborated, holding the hand that was resting on her shoulder. "There's an android that's destroying planets left and right as we speak, and I've been asked to stop him, but we're going to need Vegeta's help since I'm still pregnant. After we find out how to come back to life, we'll have to go to Namek-sei to get Earth to come back."

"... You've never really made a lot of sense before, but now I _know_ you bumped your head too hard as an infant."

--

Vegeta scowled at the men sitting before him, and bit deeply into the meat that had been offered to him. None of them seemed particularily interested in him, and he muttered nothing, rubbing over a temple as he felt a migraine begin to hit. He stared at his grandfather the most of all though, wondering just what was going to happen to him now that the old Saiyajin had him in his clutches. Try as he might have, Vegeta couldn't shake away the feeling that the man would want to use him somehow - though he knew that none of the blame should have been put onto the man.

Jerking when he felt Kakarotto abruptly begin to shoot down through the Circas, he lurched to his feet, and turned to look over at the Gateway. Did she know where he was? Perhaps she was travelling by the transport system to get to him instead of taking the short way. She had been moving so slowly before that he had assumed she didn't want to see him, but now that she was moving so quickly ...

_Of course! She was moving slower because she went straight to the Last Circa, and she had to go through the Circas where Planet Vegeta hadn't existed. There isn't a set transport system in those decades because they're so new. She must have taken a ride with someone, so now she's ... but she can't read or speak Saiyago ... Who would ...?_

"What the hell's got you so excited?" The man called Romantic asked.

He scowled at him before he deemed it unnecessary, and pointed toward the Gateway, "... Someone I know will be coming soon."

"Yeah, those guys that beat you into the dirt," he said, and then reclined back into a rock among many that they were currently among. "We'll lay low here a while, and see if they pass us by before we start to move again. After a few hundred years, you'd be surprised how much people forget things. They'll stop chasing you eventually."

**_"Don't be so hard on him. He's only forty years into being after all. I'm near to eight thousand now."_**

"No," he murmured, "these men have been waiting for almost eight thousand years. I don't think that a couple of decades will make them forget."

"'Eight thousand' ...?" Romantic stood up, and looked the younger Saiyajin up and down before he laughed. "Of course! Hey, guys," this he directed to the others that had aided in Vegeta's escape. "Remember this? 'Hair like a dark flame, and a grand widow's peak.' People used to think it was your grandfather or father that was the one, but not you. Your hair must've changed through your teenage years though. If Planet Vegeta had still been around then, you would have made quite an uproar among the people. Imagine, being compared to that coward and yet so powerful ..."

Vegeta withdrew from them, shutting down a bit as he took that all in. The similarities between himself and the Saiyajin of the Hin'I region had always nagged at him. Yet the prince knew the truth. The Saiyajin of the Hin'I region was actually the Legendary Super Saiyajin. Just how had the two completely different characters been formed however?

_The Legendary isn't really a great hero ... he's the one that planned the destruction of our planet and our race. Yet how did a story of destruction and genocide become one of heroics and valour? When did the tales of the Hin'I Saiyajin appear? There are just too many loose ends left over. I need to know ... before those Original Images show up again. I might learn something so Kakarotto and I can fight them!_

He twitched when he realized that Romantic was still rambling on about the similarities between himself and the 'coward from Hin'I,' "Shut up."

"Excuse me?" He turned to frown at Vegeta, "You have no right to tell _me_ to be quiet. Go back to your mother's apron strings."

"No thanks, never knew her anyway," he tossed aside the slightly bitter thought before he began to walk toward civilization, intent on finding more information.

Romantic ran ahead to walk beside him, "Just what do you think you're doing? Those Original Images are still looking for you, and they should be coming by this Circa soon."

"Actually, they stopped in a Circa about a hundred years up for some reason, and they haven't moved for hours. I predict another hour or so before they move again. Until that time though, I want to find some information about the Legendary."

"What?" He glanced back at the other two men who had deigned to follow them - Vegeta's grandfather, and the one they called Addict. The rest seemed to not mind having to stay behind.

"How'd you think of the Legendary when he was calling you that Hin'I bastard?" Addict asked of him.

He ignored that particular question as they entered into the crowd.

The prince dove straight into whatever scrolls and books that he found, going through all of the ancient texts, and whatever new prints of the works that he could get his paws on while his grandfather and the others watched.

To be sure, he recieved many strange glances, but he noticed that most went to his grandfather who bore it all with a stony face. The bookseller was happy to help him no matter how much he glowered at his grandfather, and began a stack of old books and scrolls that contained information on the Legendary and the Saiyajin of the Hin'I region. Upon finishing a useless roll of parchment, Vegeta reached for a book to open it, and his eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline as he realized it was supposed to be a direct translation of writing that was even older. He went straight to the first page with near glee.

_'Hair like a dark flame, and a grand widow's peak. All was as I had been told,'_ he glanced around the marketplace before he went to take a seat near the bookseller's stand. _'He didn't frighten me though, and he told me something ... very strange after I reacted to him like some moon-faced girl. He said, "I am a Saiyajin." He was right.'_ Vegeta's gaze paused over those strange words, trying to find some kind of meaning inside of it. Biting his lip, he closed the book to look at the cover, and nearly cursed for the cover read 'Tales of Love and Blood.'

"That book," the bookseller boomed with his deep voice, and patting his broad, muscled belly as if he had just eaten his fill, "is the closest to the original that you'll ever find. It's one of my prized possessions."

He paused over the book, wondering whether he should put it down or not, yet the odd heaviness of the woman's words had hit him like one of Kakarotto's attacks, and he instead clutched it tighter, "How much for it?" _If this was written by someone that knew the Hin'I Saiyajin ... then it might tell me clues about how we can beat those Original Images._

"Not for sale," the man chimed almost comically, "I merely let others gape at its ridiculousness."

Snorting, he raised his hand, preparing an energy ball the size of the man's head, "How much for it?"

"Kggh! Free! Free! A gift from me to you! Take whatever you want!"

His eyes narrowed, letting the ball grow larger, "Do you have anything else hidden in the back about the Hin'I Saiyajin or the Legendary Super Saiyajin?"

"No! Honestly, there's nothing more! Just take it, I beg of you!" Vegeta sneered at the merchant, suddenly realizing just how cowardly the Saiyajin merchant minority really was before he headed off deeper into the marketplace with the small book tucked under his arm.

"Are you serious?" Romantic asked when they caught up with him, "That old piece of junk? You know that the lady who wrote it was a complete nutcase, right?"

"Only because Saiyajin don't like hearing the truth," he grimaced at a place two feet in front of himself, thinking of the woman's words.

The troupe walked on until Vegeta stopped at the Gateway, and secured seats for himself and the other three. The ride into the next Circa was in an hour, so he sat to read while Addict summoned the other men on his scouter.

_'When the party came to an end, I found myself alone with him and a deal that I dreaded. He had asked to use my body as an incubator for his heir and that he would give me my own in return. For weeks afterward, I forgot all about him, but the Axe Moon always seemed to remind me of his presence and status in the universe and his burning question. When the Axe Moon fell, I always wondered, where would it land? When he returned home from his mission, the next place that I saw him was in my study. He had snuck up on me, and discovered how I had taken to sleeping in my office to avoid suitors. How was I to sleep at night, knowing what he wanted to do to me? Worse yet, as the days went on, I began to speculate that I had avoided the suitors to wait for him. After I was attacked by my old bodyguard, Brolli, I accepted the Lord's deal.'_

He stopped there to take a deep breath, his eyes tightly shut as he blocked out everything else but the name he had just read. _There's one of them ... and one of the reasons that Brolli hates Kakarotto so much is ..._ His hands twitched before he realized just what he was implying, and he flipped the book over to find the name of the author.

_'Kakarotto of the Shin'Ai Region'_

Pale, he flipped it back over so that he wouldn't have to see the name. _She wrote a book about me ... She wrote about us - a book about us ..._ He opened the book again, going far ahead in the book, and his eyes skimmed over the text until he found something of interest.

_'We were gone for so long that he forgot about the world we left behind. He went so far as to claim that he would never return and that he adored me. I did all that I could to deter him, and make him return home. Our planet needed him more than I ever would, and I was just a grand distraction from his duties. I didn't want him to realize this when our world fell apart with him gone. I didn't deserve him or the babies for what I was doing to him. I didn't need little kisses on my growing belly and lips. He had to return home to our people. He never listened.'_

Swallowing dryly, he sat back in his seat on the bench, and closed his eyes, _Why would any man give up a little piece of Heaven like that? Why wait to die to be with you? His people needed him, but he never needed them ..._ He let his hands smoothe over the embossed title on the cover, feeling out the little bumps and dips of the text before he frowned. Vegeta opened his eyes to look over the title of the book again, seeing it with new eyes. _He was just a Saiyajin, and he ... loved you like I ... love my Kakarotto._ He waited to see if the sky would fall.

--

They ran for days on end from the Original Images, and Vegeta kept his senses aware for the woman that drew steadily nearer every day. They did not continue to go straight down through the Circas however. Sometimes, they went upward a few decades, and then switched back down to confuse them. One day, they had ended up higher up in the Circas than their followers, and they had stayed neatly sandwiched between them and Kakarotto for some time now. Throughout the entire debacle, Vegeta read, and researched.

The similarities between the Hin'I Saiyajin and the Legendary continued on, and Vegeta had even started a list in a small journal that was nearly filled in. The 'Tales of Love and Blood' had yielded more than just the tale of the Hin'I Saiyajin however, and he discovered strange connections between the men in the other tales and Vegeta's Original Image. He suspected that they were his other Original Images - those that had existed before the Legendary.

_Still nothing on how the Legendary defeated all of these men that want him dead ... but ..._ He bit his tongue when he recalled that the Original Images could ascend into Super Saiyajin state. _Why is **he** the one called the Legendary if the others can become Super Saiyajin? Could there be something beyond Super Saiyajin? If I am to take into account that these legends used to be the same story, then was something omitted or changed in the original text? Radittsu and I already figured out that our scriptures had been changed - so why not the stories and myths of our people?_ Growling, he clutched tighter at the book, but before he ripped it to shreds, he put it beside him on the bench, and clenched his eyes shut in thought.

_Here, I thought nothing could beat the might of a Super Saiyajin, but what could he have become that made him a Legend?_ All the stories had claimed he had not been able to control his power, and thus could only reach the state in his Oozaru form. Remembering this made him pause to look around himself at the transport terminal. He glanced at the book again before he picked it up to skip to the end of the Hin'I Saiyajin tale, reading about how Kakarotto had seen her lover transform.

_'After a bright flash of golden light, the man that had been was no longer a man that stood before us, but a beastly figure. His power radiated like the full moon above us, but the sheer weight of it was felt even in my bones as my ship departed. The heaviness was there even after he died.'_

Vegeta frowned, and set down the book again as he thought, "... Grandfather, what do you think would be more powerful than a Super Saiyajin?"

Muscle - a man aptly named - cut in before the man could say anything, "Pff, nothing's more powerful than that."

"But if there was," the prince insisted, "what would it be?"

Reclining back, Addict scratched his chin in thought at that, and Romantic raised an eyebrow at him. He gestured to the book, "You've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Do you actually believe what that woman wrote? That the Legendary and the Hin'I Saiyajin are one in the same?"

"No," Vegeta said, "I _know_." He looked over his grandfather who had yet to say anything, and frowned, "What do you think? Is there anything stronger?"

His grandfather finally tilted his head to the side before he picked up Vegeta's book, and asked, "What page were you reading?"

He nearly jumped up to show him, "Here's the page, and I've been studying this section here."

Taking a deep breath, the older man sat back to read the paragraph before he flipped back a page to read something before it. He finally closed the book, and said, "According to her, he transformed into something _after_ he became gold."

"After?"

He opened the book again to find the page, and recited, "'Golden arches cascaded around him, and he finally raised his eyes upward to the full moon where I dared to not look.' After that, she goes into a whole page of some kind of nonsense before ... 'and as he transformed into an Oozaru, I was continually blinded by the same golden arches.' He became something _after_ becoming Oozaru though. She called it a 'beastly figure.' This must be the transformation that the legend always spoke of."

"... When is the next full moon?"

--

"Kakarotto?" Moaning softly, she stirred, staring up at Turles in confusion. "We're here. Now you have to tell us where Vegeta is again."

"Where ...?"

He sighed, and helped her sit up, "We're in Circa 2400, remember? You said he was close to Circa 2000."

Smiling slightly, she yawned before she attempted to get up, but found that her belly didn't agree, "Mm ... help me up." He did so, and she yawned again, rubbing her rounded form as her child told her that it was awake too with a mighty little punch. Gokuu smiled tenderly down at her stomach before she nodded at him, "Show me the map. I think I'll be able to point him out exactly if we're that much closer."

Turles brought her a new map, and she studied it as she felt out the prince's energy signal only to come upon three _other_ signatures that matched Vegeta's. She took a sudden deep breath, and clutched at the map until it was torn asunder.

"Kakarotto!"

She jerked away, gasping sharply for air as the pieces of the brochure map fluttered to the ground, "I ..."

"No," Turles said soothingly, "it's all right. I'll just get another map. Stay here, and I'll ... I'll just hold it for you, okay?" She nodded numbly, and looked up when the fourth Bardock entered who looked in confusion at the torn map at Gokuu's feet. Turles told him as he left, "_Watch_ her."

"So you didn't like that map?" The fourth Bardock toed at the ripped paper before he looked at her with a chuckle.

"No, Vegeta is-" she stopped to frown ahead at nothing, trying to form her thoughts into something that would make sense to him. "I mean, there are three of him that are off away from our Ve ... my Vegeta ..."

His other eyebrow raised up, "Oh? ... Where are they now? How close?"

"They're with someone ..." she muttered to herself before she grabbed the side of her head gently, feeling a headache strike abruptly.

"Back!" Turles said, waving the new map brochure. "Let's get off the transport first before we look at it though. Are the other's off already or do I need to wake them up too?"

"They're off now - I was actually sent to wake _you two_ up," the man chuckled. Her uncle snorted a soft growl, but he was amused enough that he let it pass. Gokuu followed them both off of the transport, and Turles finally turned to her with the map when they were off, revealing it, "Now then, let's start from the beginning again - without tearing up the map, hm?"

Blinking at how oddly that he was acting, she looked at the map, and tracked out Vegeta's signature again, though her mind was kept distracted by the group of signatures that felt like Vegeta. After a moment, she realized these must have been Vegeta's Original Images, and she worried momentarily that she might have been following the wrong Vegeta.

She idly listened to a mother talk to her son as the two passed by, "You know that you can't pin point your father through the Gateway. Scouters only work when you're in the same Circa."

"But can I still talk to him with it?" The boy asked, and Gokuu glanced at him to see that he was having trouble getting his obviously new scouter on.

"Yes, scouters can work that way," she said. "You can't find or gauge anyone's energy on the other side of a Gateway, but you can certainly talk to them through one."

She almost lifted up her hand to point before she stopped, and kept her hand at her side. Turles raised an eyebrow at the twitch of her hand, but said nothing. Looking up discreetly, she examined the scouter he always wore, and remembered how she had felt the other Original Images always heading toward Vegeta whenever they were. All that those other Original Images had on them were scouters, and she doubted that anyone among them knew how to sense energy.

Yet the thing that began to shock her the most was that the boy and mother had not been speaking her language. Swallowing nothing, she studied Turles' scouter, and realized that she could read the blinking glyphs - though it took a while since they were inverted. After concentrating a moment, she read:

_'TRANSMITTING AUDIO'_

Standing straighter, she pursed her lips, "... This was a trap."

Turles frowned softly at her in confusion, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're getting too eagar," she murmured. Gokuu looked over at the four Bardock Images - who were also wearing blinking scouters - and told them, "You guys were pretty good actors too." She faced the scowling fourth Bardock - her birth father - and smiled sadly, "That was a nice touch too. About the picnics and helping me train my baby."

"Fuck!" Turles tossed aside the map, and grabbed her forearm, "At least we have you for a hostage. All four of those idiots will come _running_ when they find out you're in danger."

"Kakarotto," the fourth Bardock said as they walked through the transport, "we can still go out on picnics with the baby - just _without_ Vegeta."

Shaking her head, she averted her eyes from him, "Stop it, I'm sick of listening to lies." She yanked her arm out of Turles' grasp, ready to fly away. Her shoulders hackling in shock when she felt three of the Bardock Images acsend into Super Saiyajin. Gokuu clutched protectively at her baby when they came toward her.

--

"Well, how'd she figure it out!?" Nappa snapped, grating his large fangs together as he paced the room. His thick tail smacked against the wall of their ship in a loud bang that he was sure the fourth Turles could hear on the other side.

"She would only say that we were too eagar or something."

Rolling his eyes, Nappa went to sit down, "You could have improvised, damn it - at least, until she told us the Circa. We could've had a better lock on Vegeta."

"A couple hundred Circas isn't that bad though," Turles said. "I figured something out anyway. If you guys join us, Vegeta won't raise a _finger_ against a couple dozen Super Saiyajin." Rubbing his jaw, Nappa listened on as Turles continued, "There's a moniter that flashes the news every hour in every Circa. All we have to do is borrow one of the stations, and broadcast us threatening Kakarotto's life of something like that ... Vegeta - _all_ of them - will come running." As a grin spread over Nappa's face, he heard Turles chuckle, "The best thing about it is that we only have to speak in Japanese, and smile. No one would know that we're threatening to kill the bitch."

--

"I hope you remember our terms from last time," Turles said with a calm smile. "Planet Vegeta is apparently back in its rightful place already, but now all you have to do is open the way. If you do that, she and the child will be freed. Not a spike on her little head will be harmed - all you must do is open the way." He shrugged, the weird jovial grin still in place, "I trust that that you will do what is right, Vegeta."

"No ..." he hissed, lowering his head to knock it against the hard wall. Gripping the banister, Vegeta began to twist and mold the metal unknowingly.

He looked up when he heard Radittsu speak, "I'm sure you want to know whether we're telling the truth. So here she comes." It was the Radittsu wearing a toga, and he reached off of the screen for something, pulling Kakarotto over, "Smile for your lover now, slut."

For a wonder, Kakarotto did smile quite genuinely at the screen, and his chest suddenly ached when he saw how large her belly had become.

There was so much more girth than he first thought she would have when he had learned about her pregnancy over a year ago. He held his breath when he saw that she was wearing a dark yellow Saiyajin dress, the neckline at a modest cut, and the hem seemed like it reached the floor - though he could not see any lower than her knees. As style dictated, there were several dark strings of beads that were looped around her belly - each string for each month. Vegeta counted them at least a dozen times almost ceremoniously.

"Vegeta," she said, "it's going to be okay. I promise."

**What about my child?** He abruptly tried, eyes straining for even the smallest twitch to see if she had received his message.

"And the baby is fine," her voice had lowered slightly, like a soft husk, and he knew. **You're watching now?**

**How the hell can I not? These damned moniters are everywhere in this town!** He didn't tear his eyes away from Kakarotto on the screen, watching as she was taken out of the picture by Radittsu.

**Vegeta, I missed you.**

Paragus spoke up then, grinning a bit maniacally at the screen as the broadcast continued in Japanese, "You must respond by opening the way in the next three days. I'm sure that you can get to the First Circa from wherever you are in that amount of time."

**And I you ... Kakarotto, they'll be waiting for me, won't they?** Swallowing nothing, he started walking toward the Gateway, ignoring his grandfather, Romantic, and the others that had followed. **I doubt those little shits would be happy with just having the Saiyajin race back. They want me dead, don't they? **

**I'm not sure what they're thinking, but they keep talking about opening something and how it's in the First Circa ... Vegeta, I just heard something. They're prepping their ship right now to get there. Maybe they just want to drop me off there when you open whatever it is.**

Vegeta clutched the balistrade tighter, **Maybe. Are you and my child really okay? **

**Yeah, it's kicking right now. I wish you could feel it.**

Closing his eyes, he sighed, and cradled his face in his hands, **... I do too ... Kakarotto, don't ... just be safe.**

**Of course.**

"Proud?" Vegeta looked up at Addict who raised an eyebrow at him, "Just how do you think you're going to open the way?"

"Why? Do you know anything about it? ... And you speak Japanese!?"

The men laughed, and Muscle switched easily into the language - much to Vegeta' shock, "All of the men known as Vegeta have to study on the language that the youngest Vegeta uses the most. Ever since you first went to Earth, you used it nonstop, so we all learned it."

"So wait, you're saying that my all of my ancestors knew what they were saying? They could help!"

"No," Addict said, "_We_ could help. Those morons have never seen us before. All we'd have to do is dress up like civilians from around that Circa. We could distract them long enough for you to move in, and get that girl back."

Clearing his throat, Vegeta stood straighter, wary of the men suddenly, "What makes you think that I want her back?" When Addict pointed down at the metal balistrade that Vegeta had twisted and reshaped, Vegeta coughed, and started flying toward the Gateway with the others following close by, "... Do you know what I'm supposed to be opening?"

"I heard it used to be the link between Ept Pinto'Per End and our planet," Brain murmured. "But it was closed thousands of years ago when the dead kept coming back to life. To close it, the Gate God was killed, and the way became shut - presumably for all time."

_That must have been what they were talking about then. They told my Original Image when he took over my body to bring everyone back. With this ... way open, the dead Saiyajin will be able to come back to the world of the living, and live again._ "'Presumably,'" Vegeta snorted, and he saw Brain smile tightly. "You're saying there's a way to re-open it?"

Addict scowled at him, "You want that damned thing open? The dead aren't supposed to return to life, Proud."

"I've done it before. I don't think anyone will mind if I do so again."

Brain glanced over at Muscle before they both went to his side, Brain saying, "Our mother told us that in order to open the gate, the Goddess must give birth to a new Gate God."

"I don't have that kind of time! I only have three days to get it open, or Kakarotto will be killed!" He clenched his fist, glaring at the Gateway looming overhead. "It will take years to get her pregnant, and to get her through her pregnancy."

"Not so," Brain suddenly said. "There was once a boy that traveled with us for some time."

Romantic flew up to join them, "You mean our descendant? The soul of Proud's son?"

Vegeta's heart stopped until Brain elaborated, "No, he was just a boy we made you believe was Proud's. It's not that hard to imitate clothing to fool fools."

"That was a godling!?" The other man shouted before he went still, "... So where _is_ the soul of Proud's child?"

Looking back and forth between the men who were suddenly speaking of things he had no awareness of, Vegeta growled, "What the fuck is going on!?"

Brain smirked, "Soon after you first claimed Kakarotto down on Earth, Muscle and I stumbled upon the soul of the Gate God. From watching you, we knew that the Goddess was about to lose her game with the War God, and so we took her son's soul under our wing, and hid him as best as we could with these idiots. When you and your Kakarotto died, we realized that the War God found out about her pregnancy, and that the Goddess was preparing for the final round of their game. The boy was gone as soon as you two were were situated in Heaven and Hell." Vegeta swallowed nothing, trying to keep up with what was being told to him, "If all is going as planned, the Gate God's soul has made his bluff, and he and your Original Images are now waiting in Desmen'Po'End Ept'Tedin."

"Where the Gods Walk," he translated before he shoot his head, still slightly confused, "... What of this bluff? And what about my child's soul?"

"The Gate God lied to your Original Images, saying that he stole your child's soul, and that he would put it back if they went to Desmen'Po'End Ept'Tedin."

"Okay ... so the way is in Desmen'Po'End Ept'Tedin, but how the hell do we get _there_?"

"That's the easy part," Brain said when they landed at the Gateway, and he glanced around before he and Muscle started walking straight toward the Gateway. Stopping directly in front of it, Muscle and Brain began to push against the strangely firm substance that the transport ships always went though. He said over his shoulder when the other men hesitated, "Only Proud needs to go through this."

"There's a passage way through ...?" He looked between the two of them, "And why aren't you coming?"

Brain grimaced, "Because you don't need us. All you have to do is make sure the Goddess has that baby, and that the War God doesn't do anything drastic to her in the mean time. After all if she gives birth, the God of War will lose the game, and I doubt that gods like to lose. If you can do that, and keep the Goddess and her baby alive until after his birth, then the way will open, and you should get your lover back."

After a while, Muscle said as he grunted slightly, still pushing hard against whatever was resisting their passing through the Gateway, "I hope your death wasn't too painful, Proud." When Vegeta raised an eyebrow, he said, "Don't take this personally, but I don't feel like reliving my death - even if I have company."

Brain explained rather amiably, "When you go through, you must relive your death a thousand times."

His eyes narrowed suddenly, and Vegeta asked in a low voice as a dark arch appeared in the Gateway where they were pushing, "How do you know all of these things?"

"We're the first kings of Planet Vegeta," Muscle told him, "and the twin sons of the Legendary Super Saiyajin - your last Original Image." He grinned a wide set of fangs when Vegeta gaped at him and Brain - both of whom looked more a little more familiar now that they had said something about it. Muscle was rather bulky, but suddenly the large mane of hair made more sense since Radittsu had the same, and the jigsaw puzzle that was Brain's hair became slightly tamer in his mind, and he saw a slimmer version of Bardock and Turles in him. Muscle laughed softly as he dusted his hands off, "Mother told us a lot of things when we were old enough, and we've been doing whatever we could for the Goddess ever since."

"Your mother ...? Kakarotto's Original Image!" Vegeta paused before he frowned to himself, "Wait, I've havn't seen hide nor hair of her Original Images ... and none of the other Images have even _talked_ about them before. Where are they?"

"Not sure," Brain said when Muscle had faltered, and they both looked slightly confused. "We think that the Gate God knows though."

"I won't worry too much about it then," he sighed after a moment, and looked up at the opening in the Gateway. "In three days ... the full moon is in three days too. I wonder ... do you think that they know the Legendary's secret beast form?"

"Hard to say," Brain said. "The only one that seemed to know of our father's transformation was our mother, and maybe the other two Kakarotto Images, but they're all missing."

"I see." _I guess they'll show up if they think they're needed ..._

Vegeta stepped inside.

--

Gokuu swallowed dryly, and glanced over at the faucet again before taking her cup, and filling it once more. On the other side of the room, she could feel the second Brolli's stare on her back as she drank. Her babe had been unusually still and quiet for the last few days, and she rubbed her belly in worry. Her doctors had told her that meant there was less room for the baby to move, and that her due date was fast approaching. She didn't want to give birth to her child among these men. Who knew what they might try to do to it or her after it was born.

After a moment, she also remembered that heightened thirst was another sign that the birth would be soon. Closing her eyes, Gokuu filled her cup again before she sat down, abruptly feeling tired. She murmured softly when her baby finally stirred slightly, "Good morning, baby ..."

"It should have been mine," Gokuu stiffened when the second Brolli spoke. He had spoken in the dark, coarse language that he had learned as a boy, but ever since she had discovered the trap, she had realized she could actually understand the Saiyago languages and dialects that the men were saying around her. "You and every child that you've carried should have been mine, Kakarotto. I would have done _anything_ to make you happy."

Her eyes glazed over slightly, and she looked away, petting her stomach even though the baby didn't need to be soothed. _Just anything doesn't make me happy though. I want ... someone that will make me happy and content by just being beside me - I don't need anything but that, Vegeta. You and the baby._

**Vegeta, I love you so much ... Vegeta?**

--

Long ago, the War God and Goddess started a game. For Gods, a game meant doing what one did not want to do. The War God wanted all of his people to live on, and the Goddess yearned for their demise.

This made the rules quite simple. The War God had to kill off his beloved Saiyajin while the Goddess had to save them all from destruction. There would be a tie if their remaining players all died on the same day. Should the Goddess lose, she had to give her immortal life to the War God, and if she won, the God had to pass on his own immortal life to her.

Once the rules had been set, they began their game. The Goddess claimed that she could win with only one player against the War God's chosen seven, and thus was how they rolled the dice. As the game went on, their players effectively killed the Gate God in only three rounds, setting the stage for the final round.

The new Gate God was concieved soon after, making the Goddess slow his growth expodentially while she planned. Being aware of the War God's need to destroy all living Saiyajin, she had seduced the War God to give her the means to come back on top and win. With the Saiyajin all dead, the Goddess would lose the game - unless she had a way to give life back to at least one Saiyajin within ten years.

The Goddess had almost lost before the final round even began, but the Gate God waiting in her womb ensured the safety of her immortal life.

However, all of their remaining players died on the same day, and thus left the eternal beings at a standstill while they waited for their players to move into new positions. The War God realized why there had been a standstill instead of a tie or a win for him, and thus discovered his unborn son within the Goddess.

Yet they could do little else but wait and play. Each dreading every roll.

--

... XP I'm moving soon ... _Again_! Gah ...

--


	23. Baby on Board

Dragonball Infinity

Chapter Twenty-Three: _Baby on Board_

--

**Vegeta?** She tried again, her hands resting on her stomach still as she stared ahead at nothing, **Vegeta!**

**Shhh.** Gokuu stiffened at the intrusion, and actually glanced around the room to see if the second Brolli had heard the sound, but he only raised a brow at her slight jump. The sound came again, but more as a breathy whisper, **Don't worry.**

The exhalation of sound had not sounded like Vegeta, but something more feminine and hushed. She held her stomach almost tightly as she waited for more words to come from the stranger, but she heard no more from her. After a moment, she slumped back tiredly, and closed her eyes. The voice had been right after all. She had no reason to worry just yet.

The only thing she really had to worry about was whether or not she was going into labor soon. Gokuu counted the rows of beads again, almost cursing hers and Vegeta's timing in the making of their child. Gokuu remembered when these men bought her the dresses. They had wanted her to blend into society with them as much as possible, and though dresses were most definitely not one of her favorite things to wear, the threat upon her child was too great.

Turles had turned and asked how far along she was so they could get her the right amount of threads as style demanded, and she could still recall the astonishment in their eyes when she had told.

There was nothing to do now, but wait, and pray that she gave birth after this all ended.

She looked at Brolli again, watching as he watched her, and her eyes narrowed. The man immediately stood, growling a fierce warning before she said abruptly, "I'm tired."

Snorting, he nodded, and went to the door to wait for her to follow. Carefully rising due to her girth, Gokuu retrieved another glass of water that she quickly gulped down before filling the glass again.

Gokuu followed the large man down the hall, swallowing a quick sip to hide her nervousness when Brolli contacted the others, saying in his old language, "I'm moving Kakarotto to her room. And somebody get a pitcher of water and ice."

There was a pause as the second Paragus spoke on the other end, "We just got to the First Circa. Why're you pampering the little twit?"

He said, "She's been hydrating herself often, and she's tired. I think it's coming soon."

Ceasing to walk, and thanking the soft, quiet shoes they had bought her, she watched Brolli turn the corner before she slid back away, and started going down the hall in the opposite direction.

She had to wait for her baby to be born, but that didn't mean that she had to wait for them to harm it. When she reached one of the exits of the ship, she could hear a very angry Brolli that was suddenly aware of her disappearance. Grasping the turn-wheel, she spun it counter-clockwise to loosen the latch, and opened the door.

--

The third Paragus seethed, almost crushing the scouter on his head as it searched in vain for the woman's energy signature. It should have been picking up her energy in no time at all, but either the bitch had offed herself or she knew some tricks that could block their scouters. He looked at the third Turles, "What'll do we do if she's dead?"

"Pray that she's not."

"Shit," his eyes narrowed on the horizon, hoping to see a bobbing spikey head, but he had no such luck. Instead, he saw a large, dark shadow move away from their search party, and he asked into his scouter, "Turles, why're you moving the ship?"

"I'm not. I put it on auto-pilot," said the first Turles. "No one's in there."

With wide eyes, he turned to the ship as it suddenly picked up speed. He shouted to the others, "She's still onboard! She's trying to steal the ship!"

His son snarled, latching himself onto the side of the ship to bring it to a grinding halt, the engines groaning and straining while they resisted against his strength. Paragus heard the third Bardock ask, "How does she know how to pilot that thing? This Kakarotto has never driven a Saiyajin ship before."

"Apparently she has!" Paragus snapped. "Just help him stop it!"

Almost as soon as he had said that, the engines began to whine and smoke before the emergency switch enabled, and activated the automatic shut down. The engines stopped, and Brolli grinned at them, still holding it aloft. They all climbed in through the still open hatch that Kakarotto had used for her escape, and Paragus followed the four Brolli Images to the cockpit.

Only a glance inside showed them that it was as empty as when the first Turles had left it. The second Brolli growled, and slammed his fists against the wall before taking after the other three to follow and search the ship. Paragus, contacted the others on his scouter, "None of the other door alarms have been activated. She's somewhere on the ship. She can't have moved that quickly."

--

Gokuu almost waved a farewell to the ship before she thought better of it, and just walked after it, making sure to keep as much distance between herself and it as she could. She still wanted to follow it so she would know where to find Vegeta.

When she had opened the door to the ship, the voice from before had told her that they would have alarms set into the control room so that they would know whether the doors opened without their permission. After opening it, she had run from the door, and hidden away in a closet while keeping her energy at bay. While they had searched outside, she had come out to comandeer the control room, and, listening to the voice, programmed the ship to slowly fly away before quickening the pace after a minute - to allow them to see it move.

Upon finishing the program, she had rushed to the still open door, and hugged the wall of the ship, slowly moving so that she was on the side of the ship that was opposite of them. She had clung desperately to the hull as her program had started to make it move fast, but the jerk of the ship as Brolli had grabbed it nearly threw her. When they finally entered the ship through the door that was facing away from her, Gokuu slipped down to the ground to hide in some brush while they tried to make sense of everything.

It had taken a while, but the ship was finally moving away from her, and Gokuu smiled to herself, rubbing her belly contentedly. Her baby didn't stir, but she did feel something new.

Blinking slowly, Gokuu hugged her belly as she felt it pang. The abrupt cramp had started from near her spine where it slowly wrapped around where her baby was before ebbing off. After a moment, she started walking after the ship again, making sure that she could still sense it and its inhabitants.

**So what do you know about giving birth?** She tried to ask the voice, not sure if it would answer at all. It had only come when she had needed an answer.

Surprisingly, it came immediately, **Be patient.**

--

Vegeta opened his eyes, almost expecting to see Kakarotto looming over him as he died on Namek or with her in his arms as he bled over the metal floor of Paragus' ship. This time, there was no pain, and he blinked away the awkward gritty feeling in his eyes. Sitting up, he grasped at a straggly tree beside him, and pulled himself to his feet. Staring at the gray tree, he squinted at its oddities, and groaned when he finally could discern the pain in his hand. He pulled his hand off, and looked at the small puncture wounds caused by the tiny spikes covering the entire tree.

Stepping back, he looked over only to see a temple in the distance. Vegeta frowned softly, and began walking toward it. The temple was the same dull gray as the tree upon which he had pricked his hand, and was a great bulky form on the green desert sands.

Suddenly aware of all the green, he dipped his hand into the sand and brought it up to his face to look at while he walked toward the temple. The sands were fine and smooth, almost like tiny polished marbles, and Vegeta reveled in the odd feel of them - so very different from the coarse red sands of the Circas. After a moment, he was looking at gray steps, and he raised his head to the temple doors, dropping the green sand in his hand.

He pushed the doors open, entering to frown at the darkness. Vegeta was several footsteps in before he thought of something, _Why would gods have a temple? What would **they** worship?_

The door slammed shut, and he went still, feeling out several energy signatures at the end of the hall he was in. Hesitating only momentarily, he then walked onward, figuring that if he got this far, he might as well satisfy his curiosity. When he was close to the energies, he slowed down somewhat. He squinted in the dark before he realized there was a form that was glowing with a dusky silver light laying on a pedestal.

Vegeta reached out to touch her foot gently, and after a moment, realized that he was praying softly under his breath.

Something screamed next to his head, and he flung his arm out to strike where the creature had been, unable to see in the pitch black of the chamber. His hand had missed, but another form rushed for him, causing him to spin sharply out of control. Vegeta hit the ground hard, grunting before springing to his feet. With a shout, he summoned his Super Saiyajin form before the spike in energy made him realize how utterly tired he really was. The trip through the Gateway had been more taxing than he had first realized.

Also, his usual bright golden form only shed so much light. He doubted that he'd be able to see the beasts even if they were only a meter away. Thus, Vegeta clung to the side of the pedestal where the girl was still laying.

One of the creatures lunged for him again, but he managed to throw aside the form before another tackled his back, bringing him to his knees with almost shattering force. Cringing terribly, Vegeta somehow grabbed the creature - finding it clothed in some kind of garment that he could grab onto - and tossed it away. The three creatures - for he could only sense the three and the girl behind him - giggled nastily, and seemed to whisper to one another. The jargled bits and pieces finally made sense when he realized that each creature was speaking in a different dialect.

One spoke in the oldest of Saiyago dialects, while another was talking in a dialect that was about a thousand years later. The last was speaking in the Saiyago dialect of three thousand years before, and he shuddered while he listened.

"Another has come."

"Kill it, she's coming."

"No more hauntings! Get out, get out!"

"Leave us!"

"Go."

Just as suddenly as they had begun, their speaking stopped, and he held his breath for another attack before he pulled himself to his feet with the pedestal.

He could not hear their breathing, but he could still sense their odd energy and that they weren't moving toward him again. Vegeta glanced up at the naked girl when her soft silver glow intensified slightly. Not able to yet see her face or the shape of her hair, he felt along what he could see of the pedestal until he was standing beside her head. The hair did not belong to her, but the shape and mold of the little girl's sleeping face reminded him painfully of Kakarotto.

The creatures started to shriek and scream again, and it was a miracle that the girl didn't even stir. With a grimace, he took off his shirt, and draped it over her nude form before lifting her into his arms. He reasoned in his head, _Kakarotto would hate it if I left you here with these things._

As soon as he reached the doors, they opened, and he frowned before deciding to ignore it, walking through quickly, and keeping his tail close in case the doors decided to shut on it. Propping the girl up on the steps, he situated his shirt onto her, glad that it was long enough to work as a dress for her tiny form.

He sat down beside her, and shook her shoulder lightly, "Hey, wake up. The least you could do is help me find some gods for saving you."

Black eyes fluttered open before they landed on him. She smiled after a moment, and waved to him.

"Yeah, hi," he said in an older dialect, certain that someone from this place wouldn't know any newer dialect, "I'm looking for the War God. Can you tell me-" he stopped when he saw the blank look on her face. "... Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She pointed at her mouth, and shook her head.

Vegeta switched to modern Saiyago, "Do you know where the War God is?"

This time, she nodded.

"Great. Now, tell me-"

The girl shook her head again while pointing at her mouth, and it finally dawned on him as to the reason.

"You're mute?" He rubbed his face, and glanced back at the temple doors before deciding that the temple was creepy enough for one trip, and he wasn't sure that the creatures would like it if he asked for directions. Vegeta rubbed his chin before he nodded, saying, "Since you know where the War God is, then I suppose you're useful in that account. Show me the way. Quickly, I don't know how much time I have left."

She pointed at the temple doors, and Vegeta scowled at her.

"That's ridiculous. I'm not going back in there. Is there another way in?"

The little girl shook her head, and he growled, gritting his fangs before he stood up to walk away from the temple a few paces before he turned to look for some windows. He asked, "Are there any other ways we can take to get in?" He looked at her for his answer, and grunted when she shook her head again, "There's plenty of windows to go through. Why don't I go through them?"

She shook her head before he sighed and figured that he should probably listen since she was the only inhabitant he had met as so far. After a moment, something caught his eye, and he squinted at the word embedded just above the door.

**WOMB**

He pointed, and asked her, "Do you know what that means?"

The girl nodded.

--

Uh ... XP For the people that are very, very non-liking when I skip off to take breaks, just take that as a sign that the story will be coming to an end soon. I'm just brushing over all of the odds and ends that need fixing so that I can get on with the story, and finally finish it ... x.x Yeah, it's almost over. I'm going to miss this story. Though I might revisit it in a translation and/or comic form, so I'm not too worried.

And yes, it's a much shorter chapter than the last one, and it needed to be out anyway. Lemme alone. I'm going to be moving soon, so I don't know when the next one'll show up anyway.

--


End file.
